e LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.* 

J^n? |w¥<*f°-- # 



! UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.! 



'x.C- 



INFANT 



BAPTISM. 



BI 

Rev. C. W . MILLER, A. M 

OP KENTUCKY CONFERENCE, M. E. CHUUCII, SOUTH. 




ST. LOUIS: 
SOUTHWESTERN BOOK AND PUBLISHING CO., 

5IO AND 512 WASHINGTON AVENUE. 
1872. 




W?' 3 

^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 

SOUTHWESTERN BOOK & PUBLISHING CO., 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



INTRODUCTION. 



There are two extreme views with respect to the 
Church, each of which is false and mischievous. In 
one view, the Church has official custody of the grace 
of God, which it dispenses by authority, through sac- 
ramental channels of communication. In the other, 
the Church is made nothing of, or next to nothing. 
Connection with it is held to be of little or no value. 
Its ordinances and means of grace are slighted as 
nothing worth. 

It is true, beyond all question, that a man's rela- 
tions with his Maker are to be determined by himself. 
He can confer no " power of attorney " upon the 
Church to attend to the business of salvation for him. 
He must come to God in his own person. In the 
vital process of repentance and faith, and in the mys- 
tery of the new birth, no proxy can be employed. 
Yet it is also true that God has ordained in the 
Church many efficient aids, many means of grace, 
through which the earnest penitent, and the more 
advanced believer, are alike strengthened and helped 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

forward in the Christian race. The fellowship of 
saints and the ordinances of religion quicken the spir- 
itual perception and sensibilities, and encourage and 
strengthen faith. 

The mere fact of membership in the Church exerts 
a most wholesome effect on- the mind and heart. Of 
course, like all other aids and means of grace, it loses 
its effect upon the conscious and deliberate hypocrite, 
for all the means are, to us, what we make them by 
our manner of using them. Perversely and hypocrit- 
ically used, they harden. But when used in the can- 
dor and simplicity of a genuine faith they are an 
invaluable agency in the development of the Chris- 
tian life. Not that the Church confeft salvation 
officially through them j but their use, in keeping with 
the laws of our being, quickens faith, and commits us 
openly and formally to a Christian course. God 
makes them a blessing through a process altogether 
rational. In the same way the very fact of member- 
ship in the Church gives strength to our purposes. 
It separates us openly and formally from the world. 
It classifies us with the people of God. It brings 
home to us our high privileges, and puts us into a 
category altogether favorable to the service of God. 
It enforces upon our attention all the motives of piety. 

It is not a matter of small consequence what rela- 
tion our children shall sustain to the Church; whether 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

they shall come upon the arena of that contest in 
which eternal life is lost or won, in their place in the 
militant host, or enter it single-handed and without 
support. 

The whole question of the relation of children to 
the Church is involved in the doctrine of infant bap- 
tism. This book is devoted to the discussion of the 
various questions involved in this doctrine. The 
matter has appeared in a series of articles in the " St. 
Louis Christian Advocate." These articles have been 
read with great interest and beneficial effect. The 
author, though a young man, has already attained to 
eminence in controversial writing. It requires no 
sanguine temperament to hope for the accomplish- 
ment of much good by the publication of this 
book. 

There is a demand for it. Several large denomina- 
tions of Christians in our country are strangely hereti- 
cal upon this subject. The popular mind has, to a 
considerable extent, been infected by false ideas. 
What with the heresy of baptismal regeneration on 
one side, and that of anti-pedobaptism on the other, 
there is need for a widespread presentation of the 
11 truth as it is in Jesus." Controversy for its own 
sake is undesirable, but when the interests of truth 
demand it it is not to be shunned. The incidental 
ill-feeling that may arise is to be regretted, but we 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

must " contend earnestly for the faith once delivered 
to the saints." 

There is much shameful neglect ot children by the 
Church and by Christian parents. The best possible 
results of Christian training are rarely realized, for the 
reason that the training itself is imperfect. A thor- 
ough course of training, where there is a due blending 
of authority, affection and Christian teaching on the 
part of parents, and the proper care and influence on 
the part of pastors, with prayer and faith, would breed 
up a style of Christian now rarely seen among us. 

This training, to answer to the divine ideal, must 
be based on baptism and the covenant therein entered 
into by the parent for the child. On what a vantage 
ground is that child placed who has been brought 
into covenant with God by its parents. 

The parental relation is greatly disparaged and 
degraded, so far, at least, as religion is concerned, by 
those who oppose infant baptism. They deny the 
authority of the parent to make a covenant for his 
child. How totally they misconceive the nature of 
the parental relation. The fact is, that during infancy 
the parent does everything for the child, and is obliged 
to this by the very facts in the case. He must 
believe for the child and act for him in every interest, 
even the most vital. The child is in his hands, 
incapable of acting for itself, and he must act for it, or 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

let it perish. The responsibility is on him, and he 
cannot avoid it. What food it shall eat, what atmos- 
phere it shall live in, what medicine it shall take, he 
must determine. Nor does he make a title-deed in 
which he does not covenant for his child as well as for 
himself. If you say a man cannot enter into covenant 
for his child, you contradict nature itself, and the cus- 
toms of mankind from the earliest ages. 

If a man may not bind his child by a covenant in 
the matter of religion, it is an exception to the author- 
ity he holds in all civil relations. If this be so, an 
advantage is lost to the child in this highest of all 
interests, that is secured to it in all other cases. The 
mature business judgment of the father may be made 
available in the temporal interests of the child — not in 
the way of advice merely, but of actual covenant 
transactions which are to inure to his benefit. But as 
to his soul, he may be bound by no stipulations, so 
that the intelligent and mature faith of the father are 
not available in any such substantial way for his spir- 
itual wealth and safety. The very instance in which 
w'e would expect a gracious God to secure to the 
child the highest advantages of this relation, accord- 
ing to this unnatural theory, is the instance in which 
he is to reap no benefit from it whatever. 

Where the filial feeling is properly evolved there is 
the deepest sense of obligation and honor in respect 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

to the fulfillment of any covenant made by the parent. 
Let this feeling be properly fostered in the child, and 
then let him be trained to understand the force of the 
obligations that rest upon him from the baptismal 
covenant, entered into on his behalf by his parents, 
and you have a class of motives to a Christian life of 
the most commanding character. These motives are 
totally wanting in the case of children unbaptized. 

My neighbor says, " I will not bind my child in the 
affairs of his soul. He shall be free. He shall choose 
for himself y This is quite taking to the popular ear. 

But I say, my child shall not be free t® go wrong, 
either in religion or anything else, if I can help it — 
and more emphatically in religion than in anything 
else. I will bind him by commands, by covenants, 
and by all the most sacred obligations, to serve God. 
I will environ him with motives that he shall feel it 
to be unnatural and monstrous for him to disregard. 
I will make it in the highest degree difficult and pain- 
ful for him to go to hell. 

To this view of the case the Church must be 
brought There is much need of light amongst us 
upon this subject. Our own Church needs toning up 
greatly Thousands in 'the Church use little or no 
authority to turn the young, unpracticed feet of their 
children from the way of death. Many Methodists 
are incurring heavy guilt in this very thing. 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

The recent agitation of this subject in Kentucky 
and Missouri has done good — great good. Let it be 
followed up by the dissemination of a sound litera- 
ture, and by thorough pastoral instruction. This 
book appears at a good time, and will be gladly 
received by all intelligent and earnest-minded parents. 

May it have a wide circulation, and bring many to 
the knowledge of the truth on this particular point. 
Let it be understood, moreover, that the duty of offer- 
ing our children to God in baptism is not the whole 
truth. The value of baptism to a child is found in 
the fact that it is the starting point in a course of 
Christian training. Its chief value is in its relation 
to the subsequent training. Its significance is in this 
relation. If a thorough Christian training does not 
follow, then the value and significance of the baptism 
are never realized. 

There is need of a great awakening of the parental 
conscience. 

E. M. MARVIN. 

St. Louis, March 26, 1872. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



ARTICLE I . 

At the request of very many friends, I propose to 
write a series of papers on Infant Baptism, setting 
forth the argument as I understand it. The impor- 
tance of this subject in itself, independent of the vast 
difference which it creates between the religious 
denominations of this country, makes it worthy of a 
patient and prayerful consideration. The papers 
which I propose to write on the subject shall be 
short and strictly ad rem — epitomizing and sifting 
down the matter of the argument so as to enable the 
popular mind to appreciate the central points of the 
argument. 

I shall occupy the present paper with a statement 
of my Methods of Proof, and thus indicate in advance 
the line of argument to be developed. The numer- 
ous works which I have examined on this subject 
are very faulty in this regard. No definite aim seems 
to be before the writers. The reader finds himself, 
consequently, beating about in a vast sea of mate- 



12 INFANT BAPTISM. 

rials, uncertain as to what port he is to reach. Some 
writers begin at one end of the argument, others at 
the other end, and still others in the middle. Some 
open with the objections to infant baptism, others with 
objections to the theory that opposes infant baptism. 
The result of this rudderless, compassless effort to navi- 
gate this sea of facts is, that the reader soon loses 
sight of the author and interest in his subject, and 
then lays down the book, indifferent whether he goes 
down amid the icebergs of the Arctic seas or strands 
upon Cimmerian shores. 

We would avoid this evil. Therefore we shall state 
clearly how — by what met/iod—wc propose to vindi- 
cate what we believe to be taught in and authorized 
by the Holy Scriptures on the matter before us. 

There are three methods of proving a proposition, 
e. g.; (i) A command; (2) An authoritative example; 
(3) An induction. We shall employ these methods 
of proof in this investigation. We, therefore, pro- 
ceed to an explanation of these methods of proof, 
and to indicate how we shall apply them. 

(1) A command. Thus : " Do this or that." This 
is our first method. We propose to show a command 
for infant baptism. Now, to determine to whom a 
command extends it is not necessary to fix or deter- 
mine the age, or sex, or name of the party contem- 
plated. The only thing necessary to be determined 



INFANT BAPTISM. 13 

in order to ascertain whether the command extends to 
this, that, or the other one, is to determine whether 
they belong to the class contemplated in the com- 
mand. For example, in the Lord's Supper the com- 
mand is, " Do this in remembrance of me." Here 
neither age, sex, nor name is contemplated, but all who 
" remember " Christ are included in the command, 
" Do this." Now, it is only by the recognition of this 
rule that we can justify the giving of the Lord's Sup- 
per to women. We shall have occasion to examine 
this matter more at length hereafter. Let it, there- 
fore, suffice at this point to say that at the institution 
of the Lord's Supper none but men were present ; no 
instance is on record in which it is stated that a 
woman partook of the Lord's Supper; and in all 
statements with reference to that institution, such as 
Acts xx. 7, i Cor. xi. 28, words are used which defi- 
nitely distinguish the male from the female. Upon 
what authority, then, do we give the Supper to 
women ? Where is the command ? We can only 
answer, and the answer is sufficient, they are included 
in the class — namely, of those who "remember" 
Christ, to which class the command, " Do this," is 
given. Therefore they are entitled to the Lord's 
Supper, for it is an axiom that " whatsoever is com- 
manded of a class may be commanded of each indi- 
vidual in that class." We shall apply this method of 



*4 INFANT BAPTISM. 

proof to infant baptism, thus: In Matt, xxviii. 19-20, 
we are commanded, " Go ye therefore and teach (or 
disciple) all nations, baptizing them in the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," 
&c. Now, the only thing to be determined is, do 
infants belong to the class here contemplated in the 
command ? The class is u all nations." Are infants 
any part of that class ? If so, then the command to 
baptize them is as imperative as it is to baptize any 
others that belong to that class. We shall not antici- 
pate here the usual objections which anti-Pedobap- 
tists raise at this point. That shall be attended to 
in due time. We simply indicate now our line of 
proof. 

(2) An authoritative example. E. g., has any 
proper authority done the thing in question ? Have 
those who have been set forth by the Head of the 
Church as an " ensample " in practice for the Church 
done this thing ? The force of this as a method of 
proof can not be well over-estimated. Some of the 
most solemn and oft-repeated ordinances of religion 
have been set aside, and new ones substituted in their 
room by an authoritative example in the absence of 
any command or enactment in the case. Take but 
one instance. No ordinance was more solemn or 
more oft -repeated than the holy Sabbath— the fixing 
of the seventh day as a holy day. When God finished 



INFANT BAPTISM. 1 5 

the work of creation, He " blessed the seventh day 
and sanctified it" (Gen. ii. 3), and when the Deca- 
logue, the basis of all moral law, was given at Sinai, 
He embodied the law of the Sabbath in that ; and on 
through succeeding ages the blessings of heaven were 
poured upon the man who "remembered the Sabbath 
day to keep it holy," and terrible curses fell upon him 
who secularized or despised that day. No enact- 
ment stands upon the holy page for the abrogation of 
that law of the Sabbath, and no command was ever 
given by Christ to substitute another day in its room. 
And yet the Church, for eighteen centuries, has secu- 
larized the seventh day, doing all manner of work 
therein, and in the stead of the seventh day it has 
" remembered " the first day " to keep it holy." Now, 
upon what authority does the Church do this ? That 
there is no command for it, all agree; that it sets 
aside the day which God appointed from the begin- 
ning, is perfectly plain; and that this thing, in the 
absence of any command, is done with " a conscience 
void of offense toward God and man " by the holiest 
men the Church has ever had, is equally true. Where, 
then, is the authority ? We answer, it is to be found 
only in the example of the apostles and of the Church 
in its purest ages. Their exa7nple is esteemed by us 
as of sufficient authority to justify us in no longer 
remembering " the Sabbath day to keep it holy," and 



1 6 INFANT BAPTISM. 

in keeping a day which, numerically, is as far from 
the seventh as is possible — the first. 

Now, we shall apply this rule (an authoritative 
example) to the argument on infant baptism, thus : 
About one-third of the instances of baptism in the 
New Testament — a history embracing more than 
thirty years of apostolic labor — are instances of house- 
hold, or family baptisms, and those family baptisms 
expressed by a word which narrows the signification 
of household down to the father, mother and children, 
which make up a family. Here is an authoritative 
example. We shall also see that the Church, from 
the apostles on through the purest ages of its exist- 
ence, practiced infant baptism with an unanimity 
never exceeded in any item of faith and practice 
which the Church has held. If, therefore, the exam- 
ple of the apostles and of the Church in the first cen- 
turies can authorize the setting aside of the Sabbath 
day, and the substitution therefor of the first day, 
their example can authorize infant baptism. 

(3) An induction. This is a legitimate method of 
proof, and by it a demonstration may be as infallibly 
made as by any other known process of argumenta- 
tion. By induction we mean, that process of argu- 
mentation in which we ascend from the parts to the 
whole, and from general analogy or special presump- 
tions in the case form conclusions. This is Bacon's 



INFANT BAPTISM. 1 7 

method in science. It is that method of proot upon 
which many of the most sacred rights and most 
momentous interests of this life depend. Take, for 
example, the rights or basis of property. Law does 
not fix the right or basis of property, though, as Way- 
land says, " the existence and progress of society, 
nay, the very existence of our race, depends upon 
the acknowledgment of this right." Now, our knowl- 
edge of the rights of property is obtained simply by 
an induction. We make an induction (i) of natural 
conscience, and (2) of general consequences, and thus 
determine the question as to the right of property. 

I shall apply this method of proof, thus : I shall 
take the covenant of grace, the great organic law of 
Christ's kingdom, and the relation of children to 
Christ's kingdom ("of such is the kingdom of God"), 
and by an induction of these establish the rightful- 
ness of infant baptism. 

I have thus indicated the line of argumentation, 
the methods of proof, which I propose to follow. I 
may not confine myself to the exact order in which I 
have stated these rules, but they shall be the head- 
lands toward which I will constantly steer, the paths 
in which I shall walk. The reader, therefore, who 
may desire information upon this important subject, 
may now follow us, intelligently and satisfactorily, to 
the conclusions which we propose to reach. 
2 



1 8 INFANT BAPTISM. 

ARTICLE II. 

HISTORIC EVIDENCE THE PRACTICE OF THE CHURCH. 

Whence the practice of infant baptism ? This is a 
perfectly natural question. Is it an innovation ? If 
so, it had a beginning somewhere and by some one. 
But when, where, and by whom ? Is it true that the 
opposers of infant baptism charge that it is an inno- 
vation, and yet utterly fail, with the history of the 
whole Church before them, to fix when, where, and 
by whom so great an innovation came in? This fail- 
ure is not without significance. If it were an innova- 
tion, history would have recorded the name of the 
innovator, where he lived, and when he began the 
practice ; and those who have succeeded in cultivat- 
ing in themselves and in their followers so strange a 
disgust for the practice, would not have been slow in 
announcing the record to the world. Their failure to 
produce reliable history to sustain their assumption, 
that infant baptism is an innovation, is the more 
remarkable when we consider the fact that the 
fathers — the reliable writers of the first centuries of 
the Christian era — have transmitted to us full and 
minute accounts of the origin of the various heresies 
and innovations which arose from time to time. 
Thus, Tertullian, of the second century, has trans- 
mitted a list of the innovations of his time; Irenaeus, 



INFANT BAPTISM. 19 

who was born about A. D. 120, wrote a volume of 
nearly 500 pages against heresies, which has come 
down to us; Hippolytus, who was born about A. D. 
200, wrote ten books against "All Heresies." In 
these and similar works the innovations which crept 
into the Church are carefully catalogued. Hence, it 
is not a difficult task to give the name, and the place, 
and the time of each innovator. For example: 
Extreme U?ictio?i was introduced by the Marcosians 
in the second half of the second century; penance 
came in about A. D. 225; exorcism, insufflation, 
touching the ear ot the baptized, and the sign of the 
cross, &c, in the second and third centuries (See 
SchafT., Hist. Chr. Church, vol. 2, p. 486). Leo the 
Great was the first Pope (Ibid., p. 316-17). The 
Mass was introduced by Gregory in the sixth cen- 
tury ; the Collyridians introduced the worship of the 
Virgin Mary in the close of the fourth century ; image 
worship and purgatory came in about the same time. 
It is needless to extend this list, as it might be done 
almost ad infinitum. These instances are sufficient to 
show the fidelity of history in preserving a record of 
innovations. 

Now, the introduction of all these strange notions 
and practices excited fierce controversies, and often 
civil commotions, which lasted for many years. Is it, 
therefore, possible that infant baptism, one of the 



20 INFANT BAPTISM. 

greatest and gravest innovations, according to the 
testimony of its opponents, could have come into the 
Church without exciting a single notice from any one 
of the many writers in the Church, and without 
awakening one moment's controversy on the subject ? 
Never was there a more impossible assumption ! 
Where were all the Baptists and Campbellites of 
those days ? Is it not marvelous that one of them 
did not preach a sermon or write a pamphlet 
against what they now spend half their time in 
opposing ? 

I shall now proceed to show that while the silence 
of the grave hangs upon the opposition to infant bap- 
tism in the first centuries, the testimony of the writers 
of those centuries to the existence and apostolic 
authority of the practice is unbroken and unequivo- 
cal. By showing thus that the Church in her purest 
period, and the Apostles and their colaborers, prac- 
ticed infant baptism, we will produce an authoritative 
example, which is one of the legitimate methods of 
proof indicated in our opening letter. 

I shall now ask the reader to start with me at about 
the opening of the fifth century, and then, step by 
step, guided by true and reliable history, we will 
move back to the Apostles' time, and trace the exist- 
ence of infant baptism right within the apostolic age. 
We will then take up the practice of the Apostles and 



INFANT BAPTISM. 2 1 

see that it was harmonious with the practice of the 
Church after their day. 

Sozomen, A. D. 443. His Ecclesiastical History, 
from which I quote, is a continuation, as he tells us, 
of his history of events from the Ascension of the 
Lord to the deposition of Licinius, A. D. 324. Here 
is a history, then, written in the fifth century, and 
extending back to the Ascension. The source of 
information from which Sozomen drew his facts were, 
Clemens of Rome, Hegesippus, Africanus the histo- 
rian. Eusebius, etc. On page 202, speaking of Julian 
the Apostate, he says : - The extravagant attachment 
which Julian evinced toward the Pagan rites was 
extremely displeasing to the Christians, more espe- 
cially on account of his having been himself formerly 
a Christian. He was born of pious parents, had 
been baptized in infancy according to the custom of 
the Church, and had been brought up in the knowl- 
edge of the Holy Scriptures, under the guidance of 
priests and bishops " 

Here is a historian ot vast information and of 
undoubted veracity, declaring that infant baptism 
was " the custom of the Church," and that declara- 
tion made in a history that goes back from the fifth 
century to the Ascension : 

Now, on the assumption that the position of anti- 
Paedobaptists is true — namely, that infant baptism is 



2 2 INFANT BAPTISM. 

an innovation, then is it not amazing that a Church 
historian, who lived within 300 years of the Apostles, 
and who had read up the whole literature of the 
Church down to his time, should, in a history that 
goes back to the Ascension, affirm infant baptism to 
be " the custom of the Church ?" And is it not 
stranger still, if possible, that no good Baptist or 
Campbellite historian of Sozomen's time ever contra- 
dicted his statement and sent the facts in the case 
down to us ? There are volumes of significance in 
this. 

Augustine, A. D. 388. He was one of the most 
eminent men for learning the Church ever produced, 
and had read, according to his showing, the whole 
literature of the Church up to his times. Speaking of 
infant baptism, he says : " Which the whole body of 
the Church holds, as delivered to them, in the case ot 
little infants baptized; who certainly can not yet 
believe with the heart to righteousness, or confess 
with the mouth to salvation, as the thief could ; nay, 
but by their crying and noise while the sacrament is 
administering, they disturb the holy mysteries ; and 
yet no Christian man will say they are baptized to no 
purpose. And if any one do ask for divine authority 
in this matter, though that which the whole Church 
practices, and which has not been instituted by Coun- 
cils, but was ever in use, is very reasonably believed 



INFANT BAPTISM. 23 

to be no other than a thing delivered (or ordered) by 
authority of the Apostles ; yet we may besides take a 
true estimate, how much the sacrament of baptism 
does avail infants by the circumcision which God's 
former people received" (Wall, vol. i, p. 158). Here 
it will be observed that St. Augustine agrees perfectly 
with the historian Sozomen. They both declare 
infant baptism to be the universal custom of the 
Church. Augustine says, Quod universa te7iet eccle- 
sia — " which the whole Church holds." Now, con- 
sider that he lived within about 280 years of the 
Apostle John, and how amazing is the assumption 
that a dangerous innovation could in that time have 
become the universal practice and faith of the Church ! 
And here was a bishop referring it to the authority of 
the Apostles, and yet no one knew who introduced it, 
or when, or where ! 

Pelagius, a British monk of exalted reputation, was 
contemporary with Augustine. His views concern- 
ing depravity and original sin were opposed by Au- 
gustine with great vehemence, and as warmly defended 
by Pelagius. In the progress of the controversy 
Augustine charged that Pelagius' views made the 
baptism of infants meaningless and useless. Augus- 
tine had fallen into the grave error of baptismal 
regeneration — baptism even for the cleansing away of 
original sin. Pelagius denied that there is such a 



24 INFANT BAPTISM. 

thing as " original sin." Hence infants, not having 
any actual guilt from personal transgression, Augus- 
tine argued that Pelagius' opinions made it useless to 
baptize them. It would have been greatly to the 
advantage of Pelagius, therefore, to show that infants 
should not be baptized ; that it rested on no divine 
authority; was an innovation, &c, &c. He was a 
man of great learning, and had access to the history 
of the Church. If it had been possible, therefore, to 
show infant baptism to be an innovation, here was 
the man, and this was the time to do it. Instead of 
attempting such a thing, however, Pelagius said : 
" Men slander me as if I denied the sacrament of 
baptism to infants, or did promise the kingdom of 
heaven to some persons without the redemption of 
Christ; which is a thing that I never heard, no not 
even any wicked heretic, say. For who is there so 
ignorant of that which is read in the gospel, as (I 
need not say to affirm this, but) in any heedless way 
to say such a thing, or even have such a thought ? 
In a word, who can be so impious as to hinder infants 
from being baptized and born again in Christ, and so 
make them heirs of the kingdom of heaven," &c. 
(Wall, I, 279.) A controversialist having the sagacity 
and learning which Pelagius possessed would have 
ransacked the entire literature of the past, and have 
paraded every suspicion that could have been found 



INFANT BAPTISM. 25 

against the rightfulness of infant baptism, had there 
existed a suspicion in his day that it was not author- 
ized by the Bible. It was vital to his theory to dis- 
prove its divine authority. And yet he declares he 
never heard their right to baptism questioned ! 

Chrysostom, A. D. 380. This brings us within 280 
years of the Apostles. He, speaking of baptism as 
Christian circumcision, says: " But our circumcision, 
I mean the grace of baptism, gives cure without pain, 
and procures to us a thousand benefits, and fills us 
with the grace of the Spirit ; and it has no determ- 
inate time as that had [i. <?., that circumcision in the 
flesh had] ; but one that is in the very beginning of 
his age, or one that is in the middle of it, or one that 
is in his old age, may receive this circumcision made 
without hands." Again : " And yet some think that 
the heavenly grace consists only in forgiveness of sins ; 
but I have reckoned up ten advantages of it. For 
this cause we baptize infants also, though they are not 
defiled with sin; that there may be superadded to 
them saintship, righteousness, adoption, inheritance, a 
brotherhood with Christ, and to be made members of 
him" (Wall, I, 143-145). 

This is a statement from a source of very great 
authority. Chrysostom was at this time Bishop of 
Constantinople, the new capital of the Roman empire. 
His elevation was, therefore, great in the Church, and 



26 INFANT BAPTISM. 

his learning profound. He is not here arguing the 
rightfulness of infant baptism. There is not one line of 
controversy on that point in the entire history of the 
first thousand years of the Christian era. But he 
speaks ot infant baptism as a fact about which there 
was no doubt — just as he speaks of the Church, the 
Lord's Supper, or any other fact in Christianity. 

Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, A. D. 374. This was 
274 years after the Apostles. He supposed that the 
dividing of the river Jordan by Elias was a type of 
baptism, and says of baptism, " by which those 
infants that are baptized are reformed back again 
from wickedness [or a wicked state] to the primitive 
state of their nature." Wall, commenting on this 
passage, says : " He plainly speaks here of infants 
as baptized in the Apostles' time, as well as in his 
own ; and makes St. John (if his meaning be to speak 
of the persons baptized by him), in baptizing infants 
for the reformation of their nature back again to the 
primitive purity of it, to resemble Elias in turning 
back the waters to their spring head . . . He does 
plainly speak of the baptism of infants used in the 
Apostles' time" (Vol. 1, 139). 

Basil, A. D. 360 ; i. e., 260 years after the Apostles. 
He was Bishop of Caesarea, and " stands high among 
the fathers of the Church as one of the most eloquent, 
energetic, and spiritual of their number" (Kitto, 



INFANT BAPTISM. 27 

Ency.). He says : " But any time of one's life is 
proper for baptism. Be it day or night, be it but an 
hour or a minute, yet the most proper time is Easter," 
&c. (Wall, 1, 131.) He practiced infant baptism 
accordingly. Theodoret, in his " History of the 
Church," which was written about A. D. 423, says, 
on page 177, that Basil directed the child of the 
Emperor Valens to be baptized. In the above 
extract from his writings he declares any period of 
one's life to be proper for baptism — even an hour 
after birth. 

Gregory Nazia?izen, A. D. 360 — 260 years after 
the Apostles. He was not baptized in infancy, 
because, as is abundantly evident from the most 
reliable sources, he was born before his father em- 
braced Christianity. If there had been any doubt, 
therefore, of the rightfulness of infant baptism in his 
time, he would have availed himself of it in order to 
vindicate the memory of his father, for whom he 
always expressed great reverence. He thus expresses 
himself with reference to baptism : " Hast thou an 
infant-child ? Let not wickedness have the advan- 
tage of time; let him be sanctified from his infancy; 
let him be dedicated from his cradle to [or by] the 
Spirit. Thou, as a faint-hearted mother and of little 
faith, art afraid of giving him the seal because of the 
weakness of nature." He is here reprimanding any, 






28 INFANT BAPTISM. 

who, through a misapprehension of the saving effects 
of baptism, might be disposed to defer it until late in 
life, or until the approach of death. Tertullian, in 
the second century, had advocated such a delay in 
baptism. Gregory, however, urges the giving of " the 
seal," or baptism, " in infancy," or " from the cradle." 

Optatus, Bishop of Milevi, A. D. 360, calls baptism 
in the name of Christ " a garment," and says : "Oh ! 
what a garment is this, that is always one and never 
renewed, that decently fits all ages and all shapes ! 
It is neither too big for infants nor too little for 
men," &c. 

Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, A. D. 250; i. <?., 150 
years after the Apostles. About the year 250 this 
bishop presided over a Council at Carthage of sixty- 
six bishops. A country bishop by the name of Fidus 
addressed a letter to this Council, inquiring whether an 
infant might be baptized at any time after birth, or 
whether the law of circumcision should be observed, 
and the baptism delayed to the eighth day. To this 
letter the Council, through Cyprian, the president, 
gave the following answer : " But in respect of the 
case of infants, which you say ought not to be bap- 
tized within the second or third day after their birth, 
and that the law of ancient circumcision should be 
regarded, so that you think that one who is just born 
should not be baptized and sanctified within the 



INFANT BAPTISM. 29 

eighth day, we all thought very differently in our 
Council. For in this course which you thought was to 
be taken, no one agreed; but we all rather judge 
that the mercy and grace of God is not to be refused 
to any one born of man . . . And, therefore, dearest 
brother, this was our opinion in Council : that by us 
no one ought to be hindered from baptism and from 
the grace of God, who is merciful and kind and loving 
to all. Which, since it is to be observed and main- 
tained in respect of all, we think is to be even more 
observed in respect of infants and newly born persons, 
who on this very account deserve more from our help 
and from the divine mercy, that immediately, on the 
very beginning of their birth, lamenting and weeping, 
they do nothing else but entreat." (Cyprian, vol. I. 
Epis. lviii.) 

Here, within 150 years of the Apostles, a Council of 
sixty-six bishops, representing a large portion of the 
Church, decide that no delay should be made in bap- 
tizing infants. Let it be observed that the question 
submitted to this Council by Fidus was not concerning 
the rightfulness of infant baptism, but whether infants 
might not be withheld from it for eight days. Fidus 
urged that " the aspect of an infant in the first days 
after its birth is not pure, so that any one of us would 
still shudder at kissing it." As. therefore, it was the 
custom to give the " kiss of peace " to one when bap- 



30 INFANT BAPTISM. 

tized, it seemed to him well to delay baptism until the 
eighth day, in order that delicacy might not be 
offended by having to kiss one so young. In support 
of his claim he urged the law of circumcision. But 
Cyprian and his sixty-five associate bishops promptly 
strike down any innovation in the faith and practice 
of the Church on this subject, and inform Fidus that 
no time was to be fixed to which the baptism of 
infants should be delayed. If the claim of anti- 
Paedobaptists be true, that infant baptism is an inno- 
vation, does not this Council exhibit the most astound- 
ing absurdity ever witnessed ? For example, they, 
with perfect unanimity, enjoin upon Fidus a radical 
and dangerous innovation, which has just crept in — 
one that is almost to subvert " believers' baptism " — 
and yet they are so scrupulous about innovations as 
not to permit Fidus to delay baptizing an infant until 
the eighth day! Who but a fanatic could believe 
such a thing? The Baptist historian (?!), Orchard, 
after miserably mutilating this epistle to Fidus, and 
then trying to discredit the genuineness of it, and 
having failed to break its force, turns to the unworthy 
means of aspersing the character of Cyprian. He is 
denounced as " an ignorant fanatic," " a great tyrant," 
as making his way to the bishopric by his wealth, as 
sequestering himself from persecution, &c, &c. (See 
vol. i, pp. 75-76, Orchard's Hist. Bap.) This is the 



INFANT BAPTISM. 3 1 

common resort of the opponents of infant baptism. 
When, as they invariably do, they fail in an appeal to 
facts, they resort to ridicule and detraction. We are 
inclined to expose this pretended historian, and make 
an example of him for the benefit of others. As to 
the character of Cyprian, Fox, the great martyrolo- 
gist, thus speaks : " Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, 
was an eminent prelate, and a pious ornament to the 
Church. His doctrines were orthodox and pure, his 
language easy and elegant, and his manners graceful." 
(Fox's Book of Martyrs, p. 43.) This is the picture 
of a Christian gentleman, and is concurred in by all 
whose opinion is worth having. Instead of " seques- 
tering " himself from persecution, as Orchard alleges, 
Cyprian suffered the loss of all his estate, which was 
large, in the Decian persecution, and on the 14th day 
of September, A. D. 258, was beheaded. 

We hardly know how to characterize such conduct 
as Orchard is here guilty of. It is unworthy of any 
cause — even as bad a one as that he was aiming to 
maintain. Orchard also says that Cyprian " had no 
such practice as infant baptism in the Church at Car- 
thage," and that on receipt of Fidus' letter " he called 
together, in a private way, his brethren in the vicin- 
ity, and then he submitted the business." There is not 
a truth in all this statement. Let the reader reperuse 
the quotation from Cyprian and then judge whether 



32 INFANT BAPTISM. 

the practice of infant baptism was known in his Church. 
Instead of these bishops being assembled for the pur- 
pose of considering the letter of Fidus, it is plain that 
they were assembled upon other matters, and that Fidus 
availed himself of the opportunity to address them as 
he did; and so far was this assembly from being "a 
private " collection of Cyprian's " brethren," that it is 
most manifestly a regular Council, assembled to delib- 
erate upon Church affairs. The opening sentence in 
the reply to Fidus warrants this opinion. Thus — 
" Cyprian and others of his colleagues who were pre- 
sent in Council, in number sixty-six, to Fidus their 
brother," &c. I deem it due the cause of truth 
to make this exposure of the falseness of a pre- 
tended Church history, because its statements have 
been re-echoed by fifth-rate prophets, who depend 
upon such material for their inspiration. 

I shall resume in the next article the historic argu- 
ment. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 33 



ARTICLE III. 

HISTORIC ARGUMENT CONTINUED — TESTIMONY OF 
ORIGEN, TERTULLIAN, IREN.EUS, JUSTIN MARTYR, 
ETC. 

We now resume the argument from history, and 
proceed to show that infant baptism was practiced by 
the Church in the apostolic age without a dissenting 
voice. Our last witness was Cyprian and the Coun- 
cil at Carthage. This brought us within 150 years of 
the time of the Apostles. 

Origen, A. D. 210 ; /. e., no years after the Apostles. 
He was "the most learned and one of the most influ- 
ential of the Christian Fathers. . . . His father, 
Leonidas, was a Christian, and suffered martyrdom 
for his attachment to the cause of Christ, A. D. 202." 
(Kitto's Bib. Cyc.) 

Dr. ScharT says : " Epiphanius, an opponent, states 
the number of his [Origen's] works at six thousand, 
which (continues Schaff) is, perhaps, not much beyond 
the mark, if we include all his short tracts, homilies, 
and letters, and count them as separate volumes." 
He was a man of profound and extensive research. 
Being born in the year 185, and baptized in his in- 
, 3 



34 INFANT BAPTISM. 

fancy, there must have been many still alive in the 
Church when he was baptized who had been brought 
to Christianity by the Apostles themselves. When 
Origen was baptized in infancy the Apostle John had 
been dead only about twenty-five years. His bap- 
tism, therefore, takes us within the shadow of the 
apostolic age. Let us now hear his testimony. He 
says : " Besides all this, let it be considered, what is 
the reason that whereas the baptism of the Church is 
given for forgiveness of sins, infants also are, by the 
usage of the Church, baptized ; when, if there was 
nothing in infants that wanted forgiveness and mercy, 
the grace of baptism would be needless to them." 
(Wall, I. 65.) With Origen's opinion as to the de- 
sign of baptism we have nothing to do. It is simply 
his testimony to a fact that we are concerned about. 
He here asserts that it was the " usage " or custom of 
the Church to baptize infants. If this was not a fact, 
every man contemporary with Origen could have con- 
tradicted it; and there was just the same opportunity 
for their contradiction to reach us as there was for his 
statement. But the fact is before us, uncontradicted, 
that about 120 years after the Apostles, it was the 
" usage of the Church to baptize infants. Origen fur- 
ther affirms : " For this also it was that the Church 
had from the Apostles a tradition [or order] to give 
baptism even to infants." (Ibid., I, 66.) The word 



INFANT BAPTISM. 35 

which Dr. Wall here renders " tradition or order " 

has not the evil sense which now attaches to " tradi- 

• 

tion." The Latin tradiiionem, which Rufinus, Ori- 
gen's translator, used to translate napafiooic;, the word 
used by Origen, means " a delivering by words, teach- 
ing, instruction, delivering." (Levere/fs Lat. Lex.) 
So also the original word of Origen, -napaSooig, means, 
" In N. T. meton., anything orally delivered — a pre- 
cept, ordinance, instruction." (Robinson's N~. 2. 
Greek Lex.) Here, then, the man who within eighty- 
five years of the Apostles was himself baptized in in- 
fancy, whose father and grandfather were Christians, 
affirms that the Church had a " precept " or " instruc- 
tion " from the Apostles " to baptize infants." 

Tertullian, A. D. 200 — 100 years after the Apostles. 
It is proper to state that Tertullian had fallen into the 
most grievous errors concerning the efficacy of the 
water of baptism. He believed that when the Spirit 
hovered over the great deep in the beginning, he im- 
parted to water a divine element, and that when the 
body came in contact with water in baptism, it ab- 
sorbed, in some mysterious way, this divine element. 
Hence, in his opinion, the water of baptism did of it- 
self, cleanse away all pollution. As a matter, there- 
fore, of safety, he advised the delay of baptism of all 
persons until the most dangerous periods of life were 
passed, lest if they should fall into grievous sins after 



36 INFANT BAPTISM. 

baptism there should be no hope for them, as baptism 
could not be readministerad. Hence, says he, " For 
no less cause must the unwedded also be deferred — in 
whom [the ground of] temptation is prepared, alike in 
such as never were wedded by means of their maturi- 
ty, and in the widowed by means of their freedom 
[from the nuptial yoke] — until they either marry, or 
else be more fully strengthened for [maintaining] con- 
tinence. If any understand the weighty import of 
baptism, they will fear its reception more than its 
delay; sound faith is secure of salvation." (De Bap- 
tismo, chap, xviii.) 

This explanation is necessary to a proper under- 
standing of the quotation following : "And so," says 
Tertullian, " according to the circumstances and dis- 
position, and even age, of each individual, the delay 
of baptism is even preferable ; principally, however, 
in the case of little children." (De Baptismo, chap. 
xviii.) He did not oppose the rightfulness of infant 
baptism, as anti-Paedobaptists have frequently repre- 
sented him ; he only did in their case what he did in 
the case of "the unmarried," "widows," and all in 
whom " the ground of temptation is prepared " — 
namely, advised the delay of baptism as a matter of 
expediency. Here, then, is a distinguished writer, 
who was born about A. D. 150, speaking of infant 
baptism as an existing fact. He utters no word 



INFANT BAPTISM. 37 

against its rightfulness. He simply advises its delay, 
as he does also in the case of adults, as a matter of 
expediency. I can not refrain from again exposing 
the unchristian conduct of the opponents of infant 
baptism. The Baptist historian, Orchard, fabricates 
the following with reference to Tertullian : " Tertul- 
lian was inquired of by a rich lady named Quintilla, 
who lived at Pepuza, a town in Phrygia, whether in- 
fants might be baptized on condition that they asked 
to be baptized and produced sponsors. In reply to 
Quintilla, Tertullian observes, ' That baptism ought 
not to be administered rashly, the administrators of it 
know.'" (History of Baptists, vol. I, pp. 69-70.) 
Now, what will the candid reader think when, with 
Tertullian's works (from which Orchard pretends to 
quote) open before us, we assure him that there is not 
one word of truth in this whole story ? The entire thing 
is a fabrication. The remotest allusion to such a story 
is not found in his works ! Orchard's intention evi- 
dently was to create the impression that this was the 
first suggestion of infant baptism made to Tertullian's 
mind, and that he promptly rejected that. How des- 
perate must be a cause which throws itself upon such 
expedients for support ! 

Clement of Alexandria, A. D. 192 — 92 years after 
the Apostles. He was a distinguished writer and 
teacher in the Church. His works which have come 



38 INFANT BAPTISM. 

down to us exhibit great calmness and moderation. 
His work before us, The Pcedagogus, is largely devoted 
to instructing men and women concerning the gravity 
and modesty to be cultivated in all the affairs of life — 
e. g., apparel, ornaments, &c. Referring to the cus- 
tom of wearing rings on the fingers with seals or de- 
vices graven on them, he inveighs against the custom 
of putting lascivious pictures and devices for such 
seals, and advises as follows : "And let our seals be 
either a dove or a fish, or a ship scudding before the 
wind, or a musical lyre which Polycrates used, or a 
ship's anchor, which Seleucus got engraved as a de- 
vice; and if there be one fishing, he will remember 
the apostle, and the children (ttcu&cjv) drawn out o 
the water." Or, as Dr. Wall translates: "And if 
any one be by trade a fisherman, he will do well to 
think of an apostle, and the children taken out of the 
water." (Psed. B. Ill, chap, xi.) Wall, who is re- 
ceived as the highest authority by all on the history of 
infant baptism, remarks upon this passage : "An apos- 
tle's taking, or drawing, or lifting a child out of the 
water, can not refer to anything that I can think of, 
but the baptizing of it. And infantem de fontem levare 
[to raise an infant from the font] is a phrase used by 
the ancients, denoting the baptizing of it, almost as 
commonly as the word baptizing itself." (Wall I, 53.) 
This, in Clement, is but an allusion to the existing 



INFANT BAPTISM. 39 

fact of infant baptism ; but, as Wall says, " Such tran- 
sient supposals of a thing, and taking it for granted, 
are in an ancient author rather plainer proofs of its 
being then generally used or known, than a larger in- 
sisting on it would be." Within ninety-two years, 
then, of the Apostles' time, infant baptism is referred 
to as a well-known fact, and made to illustrate other 
topics of religion. But how could such references 
have been made if the custom did not prevail, and re- 
ceive the sanction of the Church ? With reference to 
"the drawing of the child out of the water," it may 
be proper here to state the manner of baptizing infants 
in the East, where customs remain the same from age 
to age. The " Report to the Board of Missions of the 
Prot. Epis. Ch., U# S.," by Rev. Dr. Jarvis, says: 
" The priest then asks the name of the child, and tak- 
ing him on his left arm, and supporting his feet with 
his right, he puts him into the font, his head being kept 
out of the water. Then, with the hollow of his hand, 
he pours water upon the child three times, baptizing 
him," &c. (Chapin Prim., chap. 80.) This is an 
account of the manner of baptizing among the Arme- 
niatis. The same is also stated of the Syro- Jacobites, 
Copts and Abyssinians, and other Eastern Christians. 
An apostle, therefore, " drawing a child out of the 
water," was simply lifting its feet out of the font. 
Irencens. He was born about A. D. 120, and wrote 



40 INFANT BAPTISM. 

the book from which we quote about A. D. 182. He 
was born within about twenty years of the Apostles' 
time. He was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a dis- 
ciple of the Apostle John. Concerning Polycarp, 
Irenaeus thus speaks : " Polycarp also was not only 
instructed by the Apostles, and conversed with many 
who had seen Christ, but was also, by the Apostles in 
Asia, appointed Bishop of the Church in Smyrna, 
whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on 
earth] a very long time, and when a very old man, 
gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, de- 
parted this life, having always taught the things which 
he had learned from the Apostles, and which the 
Church has handed down, and which alone are true." 
(Ire. B. Ill, 4.) Schaff says of Irenaeus: " He en- 
joyed in his youth the instruction of the venerable 
Polycarp of Smyrna. Through this link he still was 
connected with the Johannean age. The spirit of his 
preceptor passed over to him." (His. Chr. chap. I, 
488.) Such, therefore, was his contiguity to the Apos- 
tles, and such were his opportunities lor knowing their 
practice, that whatever he says upon this question 
should be received as conclusive. We quote him : 
"For He [Christ] came to save all through means of 
himself — all, I say, who through him are born again 
to God [renascuntur in Deum\ infants, and children, 
and boys, and youths, and old men. He, therefore, 



INFANT BAPTISM. 4 1 

passed through every age, becoming an infant for in- 
fants, thus sanctifying infants ; a child for children, 
thus sanctifying those who are of this age, being at 
the same time made to them an example of piety, 
righteousness, and submission," &c. (Irenaeus Adv. 
Haereseos, B. II, chap. xxii. 4.) The only thing to be 
explained in the phrase " born again to God," or " re- 
generated to God." That Irenaeus meant baptism by 
regenerate, is true beyond reasonable doubt. In book 
III, chap, xvii, he uses " baptize " and "regenerate" 
as interchangeable terms. "And again, giving to the 
disciples the power of regeneration into God, he said 
to them, ' Go and teach all nations, baptizing them,"' 
&c. Regenerate was so used by all the Fathers — e. 
g., Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, 
&c. Wall and Lightfoot show that it had been so 
used by the Jews before and during the time of the 
Apostles, and even the strongest opponents of infant 
baptism admit that Irenaeus so used the word. Thus 
Alexander Campbell says : " Well, now it comes to 
pass that I represent all the primitive Fathers as using 
the term regenerated as equivalent to the term bap- 
tized. All this is true ; and what then ? 
But on a more accurate and strict examination of their 
writings [the Fathers'] and of the use of this term in 
the New Testament, I am assured that they used the 
term regenerated as equivalent to immersion, and 



42 INFANT BAPTISM*. 

spoke of the spiritual change under other terms and 
modes of speech." (Rice and Campbell Debate, 430.) 
This is the testimony of a bitter opponent of infant 
baptism. Wall says : " The ancients, when they 
speak of regeneration as applied to a person in this 
world, do always by that word mean, or connate, his 
baptism." (I, 47.) The evidence is, therefore, abso- 
lute and overwhelming, that Irenaeus meant baptism 
by regenerate. We hear him, then, declare that " in- 
fants " are " baptized to God." Let it be remem- 
bered that this is the statement of a man who was the 
disciple and pupil of the venerable Polycarp, who was 
the disciple and pupil of the Apostle John. We have 
already seen that Origen, who was born in A. D. 185, 
was baptized in infancy. (See Wall and Schaff.) 
Hence, as Irenaeus wrote the book from which we 
quote, about eighty-two years after the Apostles' time, 
this statement was made while the Church was un- 
questionably practicing infant baptism, as in the ease 
of Origen. Now, is it to be presumed that right there, 
under the shadow of the Apostles, and while their 
disciples were still living — such men as Polycarp, who 
willingly gave up their lives for the truth of Christian- 
ity — that under such circumstances a grievous innova- 
tion came in, and the holiest and truest men in the 
Church submitted to it ? Never was there a more 
absurd conceit ! 



INFANT BAPTISM. 43 

Justin Martyr, A. D. 140 — 40 years after the 
Apostles. This eminent man in the Church often 
speaks of baptism as " spiritual circumcision," recog- 
nizing thereby the same relation of baptism to the 
Church and its members as that which circumcision 
sustained. On this subject he says : "And we, who 
have approached God through Him, have received 
not carnal, but spiritual circumcision, which Enoch 
and those like him observed. And we have received 
it through baptism, since we were sinners, by God's 
mercy; and all men may equally obtain it." (Dia. 
with Trypho, chap, xiiii.) 

It was the belief of these Fathers, as it has been of 
the Church at all times, that baptism takes the place 
of circumcision in the Church, and consequently is to 
be administered to infants just as that was. In the 
light of these truths we are now prepared to under- 
stand the following statement by Justin : "And many, 
both men and women, who have been Christ's disci- 
ples from childhood remain pure at the age of sixty or 
seventy years." (Justin Martyr's First Apology, chap, 
xx.) 

It is not a little remarkable that Justin uses the 
same word here for disciple (efiadTjrevdrjaav) that 
Matthew uses in the commission. (Matt, xxviii. 19.) 
Now, it is conceded on all sides that baptism is one 
of the essential items in discipling persons to Christ ; 



44 INFANT BAPTISM. 

and from the office of baptism in the Christian econo- 
my as Justin understood it — being the same as cir- 
cumcision — it can not be doubted that he meant to 
say these persons were baptized to Christ in childhood 
— iratdidv — infancy. Now, persons seventy years old 
in Justin's time who had been baptized in infancy, 
were baptized only about thirty-six years after the As- 
cension of Christ. This was, consequently, right in 
the Apostles' time. ScharT says of Justin : " He ex- 
pressly teaches the capacity of all men for spiritual 
circumcision by baptism ; and his ixaoiv [all] can with 
the less propriety be limited, since he is here speaking 
to a Jew, and as he elsewhere (in his smaller Apolo- 
gy) speaks of old men who have been from childhood 
disciples of Christ." (His. Chr. Ch. I, 402.) 

Her mas Fastor. It is generally believed that this 
work was written before the Apostle John wrote his 
Gospel (Vid. Wall, I, 34), and consequently it con- 
ducts us inside the Apostolic age. The book is a re- 
ligious allegory, in which the Church is represented as 
a tower in process of building. I shall only give a 
summary statement of the line of reasoning observed 
by the author. The foundation of the tower, or 
Church, is " the Son of God." (Chap, xii.) The 
"tower" built thereon "is the Church." (Chap, xiii.) 
The stones of which the tower was built were taken 
from " twelve mountains " (chap, i.), which repre- 



INFANT BAPTTSM. 45 

sent the "twelve tribes which inhabit the whole 
world." (Chap, xvii.) As the stones are taken from 
the mountains to be placed in the building, the " Seal," 
which is baptism, is applied to them. (Chap, xvi.) 
Now, the question is, have children any place in this 
tower, or Church ? We quote in answer : "And they 
who believed irom the twelfth mountain, which was 
white, are the following : they are as infant children, 
in whose hearts no evil originates ; nor did they know 
what wickedness is, but always remained as children. 
Such, accordingly, without doubt, dwell in the king- 
dom of God, because they defiled in nothing the com- 
mandment of God ; but they remained like children 
all the days of their life in the same mind. All of 
you, then, who shall remain steadfast, and be as child- 
ren, without doing evil, will be more honored than all 
who have been previously mentioned ; for all infants 
are honorable before God, and are the first persons 
with Him." (Chap, xxix.) It is only necessary to 
let the mind run over the contents of the chapters 
above given to see the bearing of this statement on 
the question before us. Here was a "tower" — the 
Church ; it was built by stones taken from " twelve 
mountains " — the nations ; to each " stone," as it was 
placed in the tower, the " Seal " was given — baptism ; 
the most honorable persons in this " tower," or with 
the owner of it, who is God, are " infants." Was the 



46 INFANT BAPTISM. 

" Seal " given to the less honorable, and withheld 
from those who were more worthy ? This would be 
absurd. We claim, therefore, that here is reliable tes- 
timony, carrying us back within the Apostolic age, 
and asserting infant baptism and infant Church mem- 
bership. In view of this unbroken historic line, Dr. 
Schaff says, in his great " History of the Church," vol. 
I, p. 401 : " But at the same time it seems to us a 
settled fact, though by many disputed, that, with the 
baptism of converts, the optional baptism of the child- 
ren of Christian parents in established congregations, 
comes down from the Apostolic age." There is no 
fact in the history of the Church better attested than 
that of infant baptism. In the first one thousand 
years of the Church's history there is not a voice raised 
against it. On the contrary, we have now seen that 
Sozomen, A. D. 443 ; Augustine, 388 ; Chrysostom, 
380; Ambrose, 374; Basil, 360: Gregory, 360; Cy- 
prian, 250; Origen, 210; Tertullian, 200; Clement, 
of Alexandria, 192; Irenaeus, 160; Justin Martyr, 
140; and Hermas Pastor, before John wrote his 
Gospel — all proclaim it as the practice of the 
Church. 

The testimony of these writers is the more remark- 
able from the fact that there could not have been 
any collusion between them. They were separated 
from each other by continents and oceans, as well as 



INFANT BAPTISM. 47 

centuries of time. Still their voice is one. I shall 
close this chapter by referring to some rules as laid 
down by the distinguished legal writer, Simon Green- 
leaf, LL. D., tor fourteen years the colleague of Chief- 
Justice Story, and afterward the honored head of the 
most distinguished school of English law in the world. 
He says : " Every document, apparently ancient, 
coming from the proper repository or custody, and 
bearing on its face no evident marks of forgery, the 
law presumes to be genuine, and devolves on the op- 
posing party the burden of proving it to be other- 
wise." (Greenleaf on Testimony of the Evangelists, 
p. 7.) We present in court, then, the depositions ol 
fourteen unimpeached witnesses, testifying to infant 
baptism back to the days of the Apostles. Let our op- 
ponents disprove these documents or forever abandon 
the absurd charge of innovation. If it be an innova- 
tion, when did it come in ? If it be not an innova- 
tion, it was practiced by the Apostles. This we pro- 
pose to show in our next. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



ARTICLE IV. 

APOSTOLIC PRACTICE APOSTLES EDUCATED IN INFANT 

BAPTISM. 

Having traced the practice of infant baptism back 
to the very days in which the inspired Apostles lived 
and taught, and having seen that these early writers 
in the Church do almost constantly refer to the Apos- 
tles as authority in this matter, it is proper now to ex- 
amine the practice of these holy men and ascertain 
what there was in their practice to warrant these state- 
ments of the Fathers. In prosecuting this inquiry, we 
shall first call attention to the fact that whenever, in 
the ministry of the Apostles, the head of a family was 
converted to •Christianity, it is expressly stated that 
the family thereof was baptized, and the word for fam- 
ily is carefully selected to express the idea of father, 
mother and children. We will show, in the second 
place, that these Apostles were reared and educated 
under the constant practice of the Church to baptize 
all, including infants, who were proselyted to the true 
faith. 

In the ministry of the Apostles we have the record 
of ten baptisms; e. g. (i) Two without families — 
Paul and the Eunuch. 






INFANT BAPTISM. 



49 



(2) Five are records of large assemblies, collected 
together in some instances on a sudden — as Pente- 
cost, &c. 

(3) Three are of families — the family of Stephanas, 
1st Cor. i. 16; the family of Lydia, Acts xvi. 15; the 
family of the Jailer, Acts xvi. 33. Nearly one-third, 
therefore, of the baptisms recorded of the Apostles 
were of families. Now, in expressing these family 
baptisms, a word was carefully selected which nar- 
rows the signification down to the father, mother and 
children of a home. This is worthy of notice. There 
are two words in the Greek which are indiscriminately 
rendered, in our version, "household." This, we 
think, should not have been. The words in question 
are, (1) oltria (oikia), and (2) olnog (oikos). The first 
word, oikia, includes in its meaning servants, attend- 
ants, friends, and any others who may be attached to 
a family. This word is never used in speaking of 
household or family baptism. 

The second word, oikos, means the family proper, 
excluding servants, attendants, &c. This word is al- 
ways used to express family baptism, except in Acts 
xvl - 33> where its equivalent is used. We have only 
to show that such distinction in these words exists. 
This we proceed to do. In 1st Cor. i. 16, it is said 
that Paul " baptized the household — olkov — of Steph- 
anas," and in 1st Cor. xvi. 15 it is said that the "house" 
4 



50 INFANT BAPTISM. 

— oiKiav — of Stephanas " addicted themselves to the 
ministry of the saints." Now, what reason is there 
for this change of words in this case if there be no dif- 
ference between them ? The facts simply are, that in 
i st Cor. i. 1 6, Paul baptized the family proper of 
Stephanas — father, mother and children, and in ist 
Cor. xvi. 15, a few years after, domestics or others at- 
tached to the family of Stephanas, " addicted them- 
selves to the ministry of the saints." Here, then, 
when the family proper is spoken of, oikos is used, and 
when those not properly of the family are spoken of, 
oikia is used. Again : In Numbers xvi. 27-32, we 
read : "And Dathan and Abiram came out, and stood 
in the door of their tents j and their wives, and their 
sons, and their little children. And the earth opened 
her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses 
— oiKovg — and all the men that appertained unto Ko- 
ran, and all their goods." 

Here, "the wives, the sons and the little children 
of these men are called their oikos — their family; 
while others who were attached to the family, but 
were not properly of it, are called "the men that ap- 
pertained unto Korah." Here, then, in the very 
Scriptures from which the Apostles drew their reli- 
gious phraseology, that word which they used to ex- 
press " household " baptism is employed carefully to 
express simply the father, mother, " sons and little 



INFANT BAPTISM. 5 1 

children." When it is remembered that these Apostles 
drew their religious phraseology from the Old Testament 
Scriptures (quoting in their epistles, as they constantly 
do, from the Greek version of the O. T.), it is very 
significant that they should, in every instance, select a 
word to express " household " baptism which in the 
O. T. so expressly includes " the little children " of 
the family. Our position with reference to these 
words is ably sustained by learned critics. Thus, 
Bloomneld on ist Cor. i. 1 6, says, " oitcog, ' family,' 
including every age and sex, and, of course, infants." 
He cites an example from Ignatius in proof. It is as 
follows : " I salute the households — oncovg — of my 
brethren with the women and children." Thus, by 
the Greek Fathers, oikos was used to designate the 
family proper, including the infants thereof. Dr. 
Summers says : " The term oiKog [oikos) means fam- 
ily as distinct from oiKia (oikia) household." (Bap- 
tism xxxii.) Now, with the fact settled beyond rea- 
sonable doubt, that the word used in the New Testa- 
ment to designate "household" baptism, does thus 
carefully exclude all but father, mother, " sons and 
little children," let us examine the record. 

Acts xvi. 15. "And when she was baptized, and 
her household, she besought us," &c. Here house- 
hold is the same word used in Numbers xvi. 32, in 
which " the little children " are mentioned as being 



52 INFANT BAPTISM. 

included. The learned inform us that the Peshito- 
Syriac translation, which some eminent critics believe 
was made in the first century, while the Apostles were 
still living, and none, I believe, place it later than 
about the close of the second century, renders this 
passage thus : " She was baptized, and her children." 
Not only then does the inspired writer use a word in 
speaking of the baptism of Lydia's family, which in- 
cludes " the little children," but the oldest translation 
in the world of that inspired statement, is that her 
" children " were baptized also. This is conclusive. 

Acts xvi. 33. "And he took them the same hour 
of the night* and washed their stripes ; and was bap- 
tized, he and all his, straightway." It is true that oikos 
is not employed here ; but it is equally true that ol 
avrovrravreg, " all his," is here put as the equivalent of 
oikos — family. All the old English translators so un- 
derstood it. Thus, Wicklif, 1380, renders it, "and 
alle his hous ;" Tyndale, 1534, has it, "was baptized 
with all that belonged unto him;" Cranmer, 1539, 
renders it, " and all they of his household; " the Ge- 
neva version of 1557, "with all that belonged unto 
him ; " and the Rheims version of 1582 has, " and all 
his house." The critics so understand it. Lange 
says : " They [the Apostles] returned that act of love 
by another, when they baptized him and his family at 
the same water." They baptized his family just as 



INFANT BAPTISM. 53 

they a day or two before had baptized Lydia's family. 
When we consider, as we presently shall, the educa- 
tion of these Apostles with reference to infant baptism 
and Church membership, such expressions cannot be 
misunderstood. 

First Cor. i. 16. "And I baptized also the house- 
hold of Stephanas." The word for household here is 
oikos. This, as we have seen, means the immediate 
family, and was so used by Paul in many instances. 
Thus, giving instruction to bishops, he says : " One 
that ruleth well his own house, olkov, having his child- 
ren in subjection with all gravi f y ; for if a man know 
not how to rule his own house, olkov, how shall he 
take care of the Church of God." (ist Tim. hi. 4, 5.) 
Now, upon the supposition that the infants of a fami- 
ly are not to be baptized, can it be conceived how the 
Apostle could, with propriety, use a word in speaking 
of family baptisms which he elsewhere employs to ex- 
press the entire family, infants and all ? To suppose 
such a thing would be to charge a culpable indiffer- 
ence in the use of words upon an inspired Apostle. 
We claim, therefore, that these facts demonstrate that 
the Apostles practiced infant baptism. The Fathers, 
who lived nearest to them, so understood it, and con- 
sequently they speak, again and again, of infant bap- 
tism being practiced and " ordered " by the Apostles. 

But, that we may still further see that these "house- 



54 INFANT BAPTISM. 

hold," or family, baptisms did necessarily involve in- 
fant baptism, let us look at the education of these 
Apostles and their co-laborers with reference to this 
thing. 

We fearlessly affirm that no custom was more com- 
mon among the Jews in the time of the Apostles, 'and 
for ages before, than the baptism of proselytes, includ- 
ing families and infants. If now it can be shown that 
these Apostles grew up and received their training 
amid the universal prevalence of infant baptism, of 
household baptisms, including infants, and of the un- 
hesitating recognition by all of the eligibility of infants 
to membership in the Church, it will amount to dem- 
onstration that they practiced infant baptism, when, 
in accordance with this their training, they went forth 
proselyting the nations and baptizing families. 

We ask the reader, therefore, to accompany us in 
the examination of some authorities establishing the 
custom of proselyte and infant baptism among the 
Jews. 

Maimonides, a learned Rabbi and commentator on 
Jewish law, says : "A stranger that is circumcised 
and not baptized, or baptized and not circumcised, he 
is not a proselyte till he be both circumcised and bap- 
tized j and he must be baptized in the presence of 
three," &c. Again : " Even as they circumcise and 
baptize strangers, so do they circumcise and baptize 



INFANT BAPTISM. 55 

servants that are received from heathens," &c. (Wall 

I, 3, 4-) 

Lightfoot, speaking of John's baptism, says : " But 
yet the first use of baptism was not exhibited at that 
time. For baptism, very many centuries of years 
backward, had been both known and received in most 
frequent uses among the Jews — and for the same end 
as it now obtains among Christians — namely, that by 
it proselytes might be admitted into the Church j and 
hence it was called baptism for proselytisms." Again, 
he says : "All the nation of Israel do assert, as it were 
with one mouth, that all the nation of Israel were 
brought into the covenant, among other things, by 
baptism. 'Israel (saith Maimonides, the great inter- 
preter of the Jewish law) was admitted into the cove- 
nant by three things — namely, by circumcision, bap- 
tism and sacrifice," &c. Again : " Whenever any 
heathen will betake himself, and be joined to the cove- 
nant of Israel, and place himself under the wings of 
the divine majesty, and take the yoke of the law upon 
him voluntary, circumcision, baptism and oblation are 
required; but if it be a woman, baptism and oblation. 
That was a common axiom : No man is a proselyte 
until he be circumcised and baptized. . . . They 
baptized also young children (for the most part with 
their parents). ' They baptize a little proselyte ac- 
cording to the judgment of the Sanhedrim.' (Bab. 



56 INFANT BAPTISM. 

Erubhin.) . . . < This is to be understood of little 
children, who are made proselytes together with their 
father.' . . If an Israelite take a Gentile child, 

or find a Gentile infant, and baptize him in the name 
of a proselyte, behold, he is a proselyte." (Lightfoot, 
Hor. Heb. et Tab, vol. II, pp. 54-57.) 

Here it is made manifest that proselyte baptism ex- 
isted in the Church many centuries before the time of 
the Apostles, and that the infant children of proselytes 
were always baptized with their parents. Household 
baptisms, therefore, including infants, were just as 
common among the Jews as household circumcision. 
Dr. Lightfoot, who had read up exhaustively the en- 
tire literature of the Hebrews, says that " all the na- 
tion of Israel do assert, as it were with one mouth, that 
all the nation of Israel were brought into the cove- 
nant, among other things, by baptism." What, 
now, we ask, could have been the construction, and 
the only construction, which a Jew would place upon 
the language of Luke and Paul when they again and 
again speak of baptizing " the household " of such 
and such persons ? Unless we assume that a nation 
did, in a day, change its whole religious phraseology, 
without any reason appearing why they should do so, 
we must admit that the Jews, to whom these inspired 
documents were directed, and the Apostles who wrote 
them, must have understood such expressions as 



INFANT BAPTISM. 57 

" household " or " family baptism " in the same sense 
in which those phrases had been used for ages — 
namely, as including infants. Home lays it down as 
a universal rule, that " The received signification of a 
word is to be retained," unless weighty and necessary 
reasons require that it should be abandoned or ne- 
glected." (Introduction Pt. II, 335.) But no such 
" weighty and necessary reasons " have ever been ad- 
duced by our opponents showing why Paul and others 
used those phrases in a different sense from that 
which they had borne in all the literature of all the 
ages of the Hebrew people. 

If it were necessary to substantiate the statements 
of Lightfoot and Wall concerning this practice of pro- 
selyte infant baptism, we might array, almost without 
end, the names of the most distinguished scholars of 
the past and present, who affirm the same. We will 
give a few as samples. 

Kitto's Cyclo. Bib. Lit., vol. Ill, Art. Proselytes. 
"According to the Rabbins, baptism was even more 
essential than circumcision. . . . When a prose- 
lyte had young children, these were baptized with 
their parents. . . . Assuming that they practiced 
that rite before, we can account for their not giving it 
up simply because the Christians had adopted it; but, 
trace it as we please to Jewish customs and rites, it 
seems utterly incredible that after it had become the 



58 INFANT BAPTISM. 

symbol and badge of the religious party, which of all 
others, perhaps, the Jews most bitterly hated, any 
consideration whatever should have induced them to 
begin to practice it. On the other hand, we have, in 
favor of the hypothesis that proselyte baptism was 
practiced anterior to the time of our Lord, some 
strongly corroborative evidence. We have, in the 
first place, the unanimous tradition of the Jewish Rab- 
bins, who impute to the practice an antiquity com- 
mensurate almost with that of their nation. Secondly, 
we have the fact that the baptism of John the Baptist 
was not regarded by the people as aught of a novelty, 
nor was represented by him as resting for its authority 
upon any special divine revelation. Thirdly, we have 
the fact that the Pharisees looked upon the baptism 
both of John and Jesus as a mode of proselyting men 
to their religious views (John iv. 1-3) and that the 
dispute between the Jews and the sons of John's disci- 
ples about purifying, was apparently a dispute as to 
the competing claims of John and Jesus to make pro- 
selytes." We give so much of this valuable article 
because it expresses so concisely the views of the 
learned world. To the names already given might be 
added those of Selden, Danze, Witsius, Kuincel, Jahn, 
Halley, Buxtorf, Schoetgen, Wetstein, Furst, Mosheim 
and SchafT. 

If, therefore, learning and the literature of a people 



INFANT BAPTISM. 59 

can establish anything, or is worth anything in deter- 
mining the customs of a people, then it is established 
that proselyte infant baptism was the universal custom 
of the Hebrews in the days of the Apostles, and had 
been for ages. Now, under these influences, these 
Hebrew men, who were made the Apostles of Christ, 
were reared and educated. There had never been a 
suspicion in their minds against the eligibility of infants 
to a place in the Church and to the token of covenant 
relation ; they had witnessed the baptism of families, 
including infants, whenever a Gentile father or mother 
sought a place among God's Israel ; their Divine 
Master had uttered no syllable indicating that a change 
in this respect was to characterize their practice ; and 
now, with such an education, and from the midst of 
this universally prevalent custom, they go forth to 
proselyte the " nations " to Christ, and in this work 
nearly one-third of the baptisms recorded of them are 
of " households " or " families." Logic and common 
sense leave but one conclusion to be drawn — namely, 
that they baptized infants, as their fathers had done 
through the ages past. 

There is one point in this question of Jewish prose- 
lyte baptism which it may be well here to notice, be- 
cause our opponents, in their despair, invariably run 
to it. They tell us that no such thing as baptism is 
commanded in the inspired laws of the Hebrews ; and 



60 INFANT BAPTISM. 

that if baptism was added by the Hebrews at any- 
time before Christ, it was an innovation, and conse- 
quently heretical. This is the best they can do in 
setting aside this custom. But this cavil may be suc- 
cessfully exposed and refuted in many ways. 

Thus, for example, when the Passover was instituted 
no mention is made of wine as any part of the ele- 
ments of the Passover Supper. The Paschal " lamb," 
" unleavened bread " and " bitter herbs " are the only 
things mentioned in the institution of that solemn feast. 
(See Ex. xii. i-io.) And yet, when Christ ate the 
last Passover with his disciples, and of it instituted his 
Supper, wine was an essential part in that Passover, 
and Jesus recognized the rightfulness of its being there 
when he used it in the institution of His Supper. In 
like manner, if we were to admit that no mention of 
baptism is made in the law concerning a proselyte, 
still here was the custom of baptizing them, extending 
back to the remotest periods in Hebrew history, and 
Christ recognizes its rightfulness in that he enjoins 
upon his Apostles to baptize all whom they proselyte 
to him. But there is divine authority for the existence 
of baptism among the Hebrews anterior to the Apos- 
tles. Thus, Paul says of their ordinances, " which 
stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings 
{or baptisms, panTiopou;), and carnal ordinances, im- 
posed on them until the time of reformation." (Heb. 
ix. 10.) 



INFANT BAPTISM. 6l 

Here it is plainly declared that He who imposed 
the ordinances of " meats and drinks " upon the He- 
brews, also imposed the ordinance of " divers bap- 
tisms." Again: " Moreover, brethren, I would not 
have you ignorant how .that all our fathers were under 
the cloud, and all passed through the sea ; and were 
all baptized (Panned)) unto Moses in the cloud and 
in the sea." (ist Cor. x. i, 2.) Here, " the whole na- 
tion of Israel " was baptized when they came out of 
Egypt. "And when they came from the market, ex- 
cept they wash (or baptize, PanTtouvrai), they eat not. 
And many other things there be, which they have re- 
ceived to hold, as the washing (or baptism, (3anTioiJ,og) 
of cups, and pots, brazen vessels, and of tables." 
(Mark vii. 4.) We have seen from Heb. ix. 10 that 
these baptisms were " imposed " on them by the same 
authority that imposed the ordinances of " meats and 
drinks " — namely, Jehovah. Baptism, therefore, was 
of divine appointment among the Hebrews, and that 
baptism was given to infants. 

Men, therefore, who had been educated under this 
divinely appointed rite, and who had witnessed it 
through their entire lives, would have required special 
instruction from the Master, and the most explicit 
commands, before they could have been brought to 
practice contrarily. Witness, for example, the difficul- 
ty there was in inducing Peter " to go to the Gen- 



62 INFANT BAPTISM. 

tiles," whom he had been taught by his religion to 
regard as unclean. God had not only to give an ex- 
press command, " Get thee down, and go with them" 
(Acts x. 20), but he had to work a wonder, in the 
vision of " the sheet," before the religious training of 
this Jew could be overcome. And after all this had 
been done, Peter went to Cornelius with these words, 
" Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man 
that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of 
another nation." (Acts x. 28.) Now, in the face of 
such facts, the opponents of infant baptism would 
have us believe that these Apostles, educated and de- 
veloped in all their religious life under the practice of 
infant baptism, whenever a Gentile family was prose- 
lyted, themselves went forth to proselyte the Gentile 
world, and, without one hint or suggestion from the 
Master, abandoned in their practice that which they 
had been educated to believe an essential feature of 
religion. The thing is too absurd to be entertained 
for a moment. 

Let us now run back over the argument from an 
authoritative example. We have seen that in the first 
four centuries of the Christian era. the voice of history 
is uniform in regard to the practice of infant baptism. 
We traced it inside the Apostolic age. Here is the 
practice of the Church in its purest age. We have 
seen that the Apostles, who were reared and educated 



INFANT BAPTISM. 63 

under the universal prevalence of infant baptism, did 
always baptize the whole family when the head there- 
of received Christ ; and that in the education of the 
Apostles such family baptisms always involved the 
baptism of infants. We have seen that the proselyte 
baptism among the Hebrews, which included that of 
infants, was not an innovation, but of divine appoint- 
ment, as certified to by St. Paul, in Heb. ix. 10. Now, 
if the opponents of infant baptism were called upon 
to produce one-half the authority for setting aside the 
" seventh day " as a holy day, and for substituting 
therefor the first day of the week, that is here pro- 
duced for infant baptism, they could not do it to save 
the world ! And yet, with an effrontery which is ab- 
solutely shocking, they declare that infant baptism has 
no divine warrant ! 

We shall take up in our next our first method of 
proof — namely, a divine command. 



64 INFANT BAPTISM. 



ARTICLE V. 

THE COMMISSION A POSITIVE COMMAND — UNDER IT 
" LITTLE CHILDREN " ARE TO BE RECEIVED " IN 
THE NAME OF JESUS." 

We have stated that one method of proving a pro- 
position is a command — " Do this or that." 

But how shall we determine to whom such a com- 
mand extends ? It is perfectly obvious that a com- 
mand may, and often does, extend to parties not 
named in it. In the event, then, of a controversy as 
to whether a certain party is contemplated in a given 
command, how could it be satisfactorily determined ? 
Simply by ascertaining whether that party belongs to 
the class named in the command. This position may 
be fully established by reference to the Lord's Supper. 
In it the command is, " Do this in remembrance of 
me." Now, if one were disposed to be captious, and 
to confide in such arguments as the opponents of in- 
fant baptism put forth, he might urge, with great 
plausibility, that women are not entitled to partake of 
this Supper. He might urge the following considera- 
tions, which are much stronger against giving the Sup- 
per to women than anything they have put forth 



INFANT BAPTISM. 65 

against infant baptism. E. g. — It might be urged (i), 
That none but men were present when the Supper was 
instituted ; (2), That no mention is made by any of the 
inspired writers of any instance in which a woman 
partook of the Lord's Supper. There is not one such 
example; (3), That the appellations given in the New 
Testament to those who partook of the Lord's Sup- 
per, such as ftadrjrrjg, aytoq, {matheetees, hagios), &c, 
are in the masculine gender ; and (4), That when the 
Apostle gave directions about partaking of the Lord's 
Supper, he employed a word which is often used to 
distinguish the man from the woman. Thus, 1st Cor. 
xi. 28, " But let a man — avdpoTrog (anthropos) exam- 
ine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink 
of that cup." Now, the word for man here is often 
used to distinguish man from woman. 

I will give a few examples : Gen. ii. 24, " There- 
fore shall a man {anthropos) leave his father and 
mother and cleave unto his wife." Gen. xxvi. n, 
"And Abimelech charged all his people, saying, He 
that toucheth this man {anlhropori) or his wite, shall 
surely be put to death." Gen. xxxiv. 14, "And they 
said unto them, We can not do this thing, to give our 
sister to one {anthropo) that is uncircumcised." Matt, 
xix. 10, " His disciples say unto him, If the case of 
the man (anthropon) be so with his wife, it is not good 
to marry ; " xix. 3, " Is it lawful for a man {anthropo) 
5 



66 INFANT BAPTISM. 

to put away his wife for every cause ?" These exam- 
ples might be indefinitely multiplied, were it necessary. 
These, however, show that when the Apostle gave 
direction about partaking of the Lord's Supper he 
used a term which signifies man as distinguished 
from woman. What an array a shrewd debater could 
thus make against permitting women to commune! 
And, O ! if our opponents could adduce anything half 
so strong against infant baptism, how they would 
exult in it ! Now, how do we determine that the 
command, " Do this," extends to women ? In other 
words, how can we justify the practice of giving the 
Lord's Supper to them ? Simply by determining 
whether they belong to that class to whom this com- 
mand is given. What is the class ? They that " re- 
member" Jesus — "Do this in remembrance of me." 
Upon this, and this alone, we give the Supper to wo 
men. 

Now let us apply this rule to the question under 
•consideration. The commission as given in Matt, 
xxviii. 19, is as follows : " Go ye therefore and teach 
[or disciple] all nations, baptizing them in the name 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 
Here the command is, disciple, baptize ; the class is, 
" all nations." Do infants belong to the class ? Are 
they a part of " the nations ?" If so, then the com- 
mand extends to them as well as to any others of " the 
nations." 



INFANT BAPTISM. ' 67 

Let us see if the Scriptures use the expression, "the 
nations," so as to include infants. John xi. 50, "Now 
consider that it is expedient for us that one man die 
for the people, and that the whole nation perish not." 
If a " whole nation " were to perish, would the in- 
fants thereof escape? Acts xvii. 26, God "hath 
made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on 
all the face of the earth." When God made " all na- 
tions " were infants not included ? Thus it is most 
manifest that the very terms of the commission em- 
brace infants — " disciple all nations, baptizing them." 
The very moment the opponent of infant baptism dis- 
proves the rule by which we extend the command to 
baptize in this commission to infants, that moment he 
takes away the only ground upon which he can vin- 
dicate his practice of giving the Lord's Supper to wo- 
men. Here, therefore, we claim, is a positive com- 
mand for infant baptism. That we may the more 
fully realize the force of this, let us consider the cir- 
cumstances under which the Apostles received this 
commission. We do not understand that this com- 
mission was first given after the resurrection of Jesus. 
The record shows the contrary. Thus, Matt. x. 2-6, 
" Now the names of the twelve Apostles are these : 
The first Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his 
brother, &c. . . . These twelve Jesus sent forth, 
•end commanded them, saying, Go not into the way 



68 INFANT BAPTISM. 

of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans 
enter ye not ; but go rather to the lost sheep of the 
house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The 
kingdom of heaven is at hand," &c. Mark says, iii. 
13-14, that he " ordained twelve, that they should be 
with him, and that he might send them forth to 
preach." Matt. x. contains just such full and com- 
plete instructions as we would reasonably expect such 
ambassadors to have. Here, then, is the commission 
as given about two years before the crucifixion. This 
commission authorized them to " preach " and to bap- 
tize. It is evident from John iv 1-3 that they did 
baptize. Now, when this commission was given it 
limited them, in all their labors, to " the lost sheep of 
the house of Israel." Beyond this they were not al- 
lowed at that time to go. But when, after the resur- 
rection of Jesus, " all power in heaven and in earth " 
was given him, he lifted this limitation, and sent them 
" into all the world," to " disciple " and " baptize all 
nations." The statement which we have, therefore, 
in Matt, xxviii. 19, 20, is simply an epitome of the 
commission as given more than two years before ; and 
the only difference between this epitome and the full 
commission is, that in the full commission they are 
limited in their operations to the Hebrews, and in the 
epitome that limitation is removed. 

These facts being established, we are prepared to 



INFANT BAPTISM. 69 

appreciate the bearing of this commission on infant 
baptism. When it was first given, it was to men who 
all their lives had witnessed infant baptism in the 
Church whenever a Gentile family was proselyted, 
and it sent them restrictively to a people who had 
practiced infant baptism, according to their own testi- 
mony, from time immemorial. When they first went 
forth under this commission to preach and baptize, 
proselyte baptism, including infants, existed everywhere 
among " the lost sheep of the house of Israel," to 
whom they were restrictively sent. Now, if this prac- 
tice was to be ignored by them in their operations, 
every dictate of reason and safety for the future indi- 
cated this as the point at which definite instructions 
against the practice should have been given them.. 
To take men whose whole religious life had been de- 
veloped under the practice of infant baptism and in- 
fant Church membership, and send them to preach 
the "kingdom of God" to a people among whom 
this thing prevailed everywhere and was recognized 
by them as of divine appointment, and give these 
men no instruction against this practice, was the most 
direct and inevitable method of insuring heretical 
practices, if this thing was not to be continued, that 
could possibly have been chosen. But not only were 
they commissioned and sent, under these circum- 
stances, to "the lost sheep of the house ot Israel," 



70 INFANT BAPTISM. 

without a hint from their Divine Master that they 
were to practice in this respect differently from what 
they had all their lives witnessed, but after his resur- 
rection they were sent " into all the world " to disci- 
ple and baptize " all nations " upon the same com- 
mission, and without a hint that they were to abandon 
a practice which they had all their lives been taught 
was of divine appointment. 

Suppose, for illustration, that their commission had 
read thus : " Go ye, therefore, and disciple all na- 
tions, circumcising them in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Now, our 
opponents admit the prevalence of circumcision among 
these Hebrews, and that every proselyte, including his 
infants, if he had any, was circumcised. These Apos- 
tles, then, religiously reared and educated to believe 
in the divine rightfulness of infant circumcision, would, 
under such a commission, have had no hesitancy in 
circumcising the infants of a family when the parents 
were discipled to Christ. It would have required an 
express injunction from the Master against this thing, 
and the assigning of reasons for such prohibition, to 
keep the Apostles from practicing it. But, according 
to the most undoubted source of information in the 
world, infant baptism prevailed among the Hebrews 
as extensively as infant circumcision, and the religious 
training of every Hebrew was just the same with refer- 



INFANT BAPTISM. 7 1 

ence to the one as the other. Why, then, will our 
opponents continue to assume that they so readily, 
and without instruction, abandoned the one while it 
required the most express commands and a long coun- 
ter-education to induce them to give up the other ? 
Such assumptions may be a fine illustration of one's 
adherence to his party, but it can never pass as an 
exhibition of intelligence and candor. 

I shall at this point notice two objections which our 
opponents make against the position that infant bap- 
tism is authorized by this commission: (i) It is ob- 
jected that my rule which extends the command to 
" baptize " to intants because they belong to the class 
named — namely, " all nations," would also extend 
that command to thieves, murderers, swearers, &c, 
because they also belong to the class, " all nations." 
This is simply an ingenious dodge, and its sophistry 
can be exposed in a moment. We have simply to ask 
the question — Do " thieves, murderers, swearers," &c, 
sustain the saved relation to Christ's kingdom that in- 
fants possess ? In Matt. xix. 14 we read : " But 
Jesus said, suffer little children and forbid them not to 
come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven;" 
and, in Mark x. 14, " Suffer the little children to come 
unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the king- 
dom of God." Whenever it can be shown that thieves, 
murderers, &c, have any such relation to the kingdom 



72 INFANT BAPTISM. 

of heaven as is here affirmed of " little children," then 
will this anti-Psedobaptist objection have some force, 
not before. 

(2) It is objected that there are essential parts of 
this commission which cannot be affirmed of infants, 
and that, therefore, they are not embraced in it. Thus, 
it is said, the commission embraces "teaching," "faith," 
" salvation," " damnation ; " an infant can not be 
" taught," it can not " believe," it can not be " damn- 
ed," and therefore it is not a proper subject for the 
other item of the commission — namely, baptism. 
There is much sophistry in this so-called process of 
reasoning, which our opponents never fail to get off 
on this question. We propose to expose it. Let the 
reader get the issue fairly before him. Baptists and 
Campbellites affirm that infants are not proper sub- 
jects of baptism because they can not "repent," "be- 
lieve," " be saved from sin," or be exposed to " dam- 
nation " — the things contemplated in the commission. 
Now, let us try this logic. It is an axiom in reason- 
ing that any process of argumentation that would es- 
tablish a position which is clearly against the truth, 
or which would support a manifest falsehood, is false 
and sophistical. Now, let' us see if this process of 
argumentation, adopted by our opponents, would es- 
tablish a proposition which is contrary to fact. It 
will not be denied that Jesus Christ was baptized, and 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



73 



it will not be contended by any that he was not a 
suitable subject for baptism. But which of these items 
ot the commission could be affirmed of him ? Could 
he " repent ?" He was without sin. Could he exer- 
cise saving faith ? He is " the author and finisher " 
of it — himself the object of saving faith. Could he be 
saved from sin ? " He knew no sin." If, therefore, 
no one is a proper subject of baptism but he who can 
"repent," "believe," be "saved from sin," &c, then 
Jesus Christ was not a proper subject. The objection 
would thus prove a falsehood, and, therefore, is in it- 
self false and sophistical. 

Again : The same objection would disprove infant 
circumcision. What did circumcision stand connected 
with in the Scriptures ? We read, Acts xv. 24, " Ye 
must be circumcised, and keep the law." Gal. v. 3, 
" Every man who is circumcised is a debtor to do the 
whole law." Rom. ii. 25, "Circumcision profiteth, if 
thou keep the law." Now, could an infant at eight 
days of age "keep the law," and "be a debtor to do 
the whole law ?" If the inability of the infant to ex- 
ercise the "faith," "repentance," &c, of the com- 
mission proves him to be ineligible to the baptism 
connected with these, would not the inability of the 
infant to " keep the law," " be a debtor to do the 
whole law," &c, prove him ineligible to the circum- 
cision connected with these ? Thus the sophistry of 



74 INFANT BAPTISM. 

this objection is dissipated. When our opponents try 
to reason upon this question they outrage all the rules 
of logic and of common sense. 

Thus they assume that when the Scriptures say 
"repent and be baptized," or " he that believeth and 
is baptized," repentance and faith are required of all 
in order to baptism. But we have seen that this is 
untrue. Jesus Christ was baptized, but not upon the 
condition of faith and repentance. Faith and repent- 
ance are required in the Scriptures for salvation, but 
will infants be damned because they can not exercise 
these ? It is required in the Scriptures that " if any 
would not work, neither should he eat" (2 Thess. iii. 
10), but shall infants be starved because they can not 
work ? If it is required in the Scriptures "not to for- 
sake the assembling of ourselves together " (Heb. x. 
25), does, therefore, the brother who is prevented by 
sickness, or other cause, fr©m going to the house of 
the Lord, sin against this command ? Well, the 
Scriptures require repentance and faith in order to 
baptism. But of whom do they require these ? The 
answer plainly is, they require repentance and faith 
only of those who are capable of exercising them, just 
as the law of circumcision required " the keeping of 
the whole law " of him who was capable of doing it, 
and still circumcised the infant. Now, the logic (?) 
of our opponents is on this wise: "The Scriptures 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



75 



require faith and repentance in order to baptism; but 
infants have not faith and repentance ; therefore, they 
are not to be baptized." The sophistry in this is man- 
ifest. The Scriptures require faith and repentance 
only of adults, just as they required obedience to the 
law only of adults in order to circumcision. Now, a 
universal rule of logic is this : " There must never be 
more in the conclusion than .there is in the premises 
from which it is drawn ; " and the reason assigned for 
this is self-evident. " Because," say the authorities, 
" the conclusion is to be drawn from the premises." 

The logic of our opponents on this subject stands 
thus, when thrown into syllogistic form : The Scrip- 
tures require faith and repentance of adults in order 
to baptism ; but infants can not have these ; therefore, 
infants are not proper subjects of baptism. Thus, we 
have adults in the major premise, and infants in the 
conclusion. This, as all must see, sets at defiance all 
the recognized rules of reasoning. But to this the 
theory of our opponents must come in every attempt 
to combat the facts of this case. Having now dis- 
posed of the usual fallacies which characterize the ob- 
jections to infant baptism, we will resume the argu- 
ment. 

In the commission, Matt, xxvhi. 20, Christ said 
to the Apostles : " Teaching them to observe all 
things whatsoever I have commanded you." Let us 



j6 INFANT BAPTISM. 

now examine some of the things which Jesus had 
" commanded " his Apostles with reference to infants 
and his kingdom, which u things " they in turn were 
to " teach " to those proselyted to Christ. 

In Matt. xix. 14 an opportunity was furnished for 
the Savior to announce the relation of infants to his 
kingdom. He said : " Suffer little children, and for- 
bid them not, to come unto me, for of such is the 
kingdom of heaven." The Savior made this declara- 
tion to define the relation of infants to his kingdom, 
and thus assign the reason why they should not be 
kept from him. Their relation is that of subjects; 
they are citizens in his kingdom, and as such they 
stand in a saved relation to him, alike with a regene- 
rated adult. When adults are "born again," and 
made recipients of all the blessings of atoning love, 
their relation to Christ is expressed by, and compre- 
hended in, the statement, " Now, therefore, ye are no 
more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with 
the saints, and of the household of God." (Eph. ii. 19.) 

Such is also the statement with reference to infants 
— " Of such is the kingdom of heaven." Now, Christ 
had commanded these Apostles to let " little children 
come to him," and in the commission he tells them 
to teach all things whatsoever he had commanded 
them, including necessarily the bringing of little child- 
ren to him. This can not mean anything but the re- 



INFANT BAPTISM. 77 

cognizing of their covenant relation to Christ, and 
the giving to them the token — baptism — of that rela- 
tion. 

Again: Luke ix. 47,48: Jesus "took a child, and 
set him by him, and said unto them, Whosoever shall 
receive this child in my name, receiveth me." Mark 
ix. 36, says Jesus " took him in his arms," showing 
that it was an infant child. Now, what does Jesus 
here command with reference to this child ? It is, 
that his people shall receive it in his name. This 
must imply the recognition of the fact that the child 
is Christ's subject, and treat him accordingly. But 
would that be a recognition of this fact, which frown- 
ingly ignores that the child is a subject of Christ's 
kingdom, and forcibly withholds from it the badge — 
baptism — of citizenship ? Verily not. In these pass- 
ages two things are made manifest : 

(1) In Matt. xix. 14, the rights of infants are as- 
serted — "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." They 
are citizens — subjects. 

(2) In Luke ix. 48, the duty of the Church with 
reference to them is announced — receive them in the 
name of Jesus Christ. This implies, beyond doubt, 
their baptism. 

Men educated as we have seen these Apostles were, 
with infant baptism and infant membership in the 
Church prevalent from one limit of Israel to the other, 



78 INFANT BAPTISM. 

could not have misunderstood such declarations as 
these. Hence their practice in baptizing families, and 
hence the fathers, again and again, refer to the Apos- 
tles as authority for infant baptism. 

With these facts before us, we have no hesitation in 
affirming that if anything is made obligatory upon us 
by the law of Christ's kingdom — by direct command 
— it is the baptism of infants. The right of pious wo- 
men at the Lord's table, though unquestionable, has 
not half the testimony in its favor that infant baptism 
has. Their rights in "the kingdom of God" are 
clearly defined (Matt. xix. 14) — they are citizens; the 
duty of the Church in reference to them is explicitly 
stated (Luke ix. 48) — receive them in the name of 
Jesus; and the commission to disciple and baptize 
"the nations" (Matt, xxviii. 19) brings the positive 
command to baptize them. It is a fearful thing to 
stand up in the face of God's will, as thus plainly de- 
clared, and repudiate their rights in " the kingdom of 
heaven." 



INFANT BAPTISM. 79 



ARTICLE VI. 

THE ORGANIC LAW OF GOD'S KINGDOM ABRAHAMIC 

COVENANT — INFANTS PROVIDED FOR. 

An appeal to constitutional provisions is always ul- 
timate and decisive in matters in dispute. If the 
rights of my child as a member of the Commonwealth 
of Kentucky should be contested, I have only to ap- 
peal to the Constitution of the State — the organic law 
of the Commonwealth — and determine, by its deci- 
sions, the questions at issue. Equally true is it in the 
11 Commonwealth of Israel." It has its organic law — 
a Constitution broad as the purposes of God in re- 
demption, and as enduring as time. Its provisions 
are plainly written, and were illustrated by centuries 
of divine and inspired administration. To it we con- 
fidently appeal. We propose here to establish that 
the covenant which God made with Abraham is the 
universal covenant of grace, and that it makes special 
provision for infants. We thus state in advance our 
purpose, that the reader may follow intelligently. If, 
now, we establish, that this covenant is the great con- 
stitutional law of the Church, that it is never to be 
abrogated, and that it provides for the admission of 
infants into the Church, and that they shall have the 



80 INFANT BAPTISM. 

token of that covenant and Church relation, we shall 
have established the rightfulness of infant baptism by 
an appeal to an unalterable constitutional provision. 
It may be necessary at this point, before entering 
more fully upon the examination of this divine consti- 
tution, to advert to some matters which our opponents 
seem to think are insuperable obstacles in the way of 
our argument upon the covenant. They affirm that 
that covenant was local and temporary, that it had ex- 
clusive reference to the lineal descendants of Abraham, 
and that it contemplated no higher good than the 
possession of Canaan and secular prosperity. Hence, 
they are fond of denominating both the covenant it- 
self and everything appertaining to it as a " fleshy in- 
stitution." Now, we are free to admit that some of its 
provisions were local and temporary. But it can not 
be ignored that its great central features were spiritual, 
universal, and eternal. Let us illustrate our position 
here. On the 15th of June, 12 15, the barons of Eng- 
land extorted from John, at Runnymede, the Magna 
Charta Libertatum. Many of its provisions were local 
and temporary — they passed away when the special 
want had been met for which they were framed. Such 
were the " checks upon the forest laws, feudal tenures," 
&c. But not so with the 39th article of Magna Char- 
ta. It reads : " Let no freeman be imprisoned, or 
disseized, or outlawed, or in any manner injured or 



INFANT BAPTISM. 8l 

proceeded against by us, otherwise than by the legal 
judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. We 
shall sell, delay, or deny right or justice to none." 
Here were the " writ of habeas corpus" and " trial by 
jury." While other provisions of that Charta met the 
special wants for which they were framed and then 
fell into desuetude, this article has survived the lapse 
of centuries, the changes of administration, and the 
tread of revolutions. The thrones of Charles I. and 
James I. crumbled into irretrievable ruin ; new names 
have appeared upon the rolls of royalty ; new laws, 
customs, &c, have come and gone in the history of 
England, yet that 39th article of Magna Charta has 
survived the wreck and changes of these centuries, 
and will hold on in its supremacy as long as English 
liberty shall be prized, either in the old or new world. 
So with the covenant which God made with Abra- 
ham. It contained items local and temporary, such 
as the " possession of the land of Canaan," a " nu- 
merous posterity," &c, &c. These provisions were 
realized in the millions of Hebrews, Ishmaelites, 
and others who descended from Abraham ; in a fifteen 
years' residence in the promised land, &c, and then 
these provisions passed away. But the great central 
features of this compact were "confirmed in Christ," 
and established as the Constitution of God's kingdom 
or Church forever. We propose in the following dis- 
6 



82 INFANT BAPTISM. 

cussion to make this truth perfectly obvious. To this 
end we affirm: (i) That the covenant made with 
Abraham is universal in its bearings and benefits. 
This can not be said of any other covenant which God 
ever made with man. E. g. — The covenant of works 
made with Adam ceased when he fell ; the covenant 
of safety with Noah extended not to the antediluvians, 
and can not be said, in any proper sense, to affect us; 
the covena?it at Sinai lasted only 148 1 years, and 
ceased upon the coming of the Messiah ; and the cov- 
enant of royalty with David fell with his house. This 
exhausts the Bible covenants, and shows that of none 
but that of Abraham could it be affirmed that they 
were universal in their bearing and benefits. Let us, 
therefore, examine the evidences for the universality 
of the benefits of the Abrahamic covenant. Gal. iii. 
16. " Now to Abraham and his seed were the prom- 
ises made. He saith not, and to seeds, as of many, 
but as of one ; and to thy seed, which is Christ." I ad- 
mire Tyndale's translation of this and the following 
verse, made in 1534, more than any I have seen, asd 
will give it in the quaint orthography of that period : 
" To Abraham and his seed were the promises made. 
He seyth not, in the seeds, as in many ; but in thy sede y 
as in one, which is Christ. This I saye, that the laws 
which beganne afterwards, beyond iiii. c. and xxx. 
yeares [430 years] doth not disannul the testament that 



INFANT BAPTISM. 83 

was confermed afore of God unto Christward, to make 
the promes of none effect." Now, let the following 
items in this statement of the Apostle be examined, 
which show the spirituality and universality ot this 
covenant : " Not to seeds as ofma?iy;" i. e., this cov- 
enant was not made simply with reference to Abra- 
ham's natural progeny, such as Isaac, Jacob, &c. j 
but it was with reference to Christ, through whom "all 
the nations of the earth" were to be "blessed." 
Hence it was made with reference to " thy seed, which 
is Christ." Therefore, the covenant could no more 
be local and temporary than Christ, as an atonement 
for sin, could be local and te??iporary. That he was 
not such is affirmed in every declaration of Scripture 
concerning him. He " loved the world," and is " as 
a lamb slain from the foundation of the world." This 
covenant with Abraham, therefore, is as really univer- 
sal in its bearings arid benefits as is the atoning death 
of Christ in whom it was confirmed, and concerning 
whom it was made. No provision of it, consequent- 
ly, can ever cease to be in force while Christ is a Sa- 
vior. Strike from its place as the Constitution of God's 
Church this covenant and you rend away the last 
beam in the edifice of human salvation. 

We proceed to notice (II): That this covenant is 
unalterable — it can never be changed or abrogated. 

A little reflection will make this manifest. The 



84 INFANT BAPTISM. 

Apostle argues the truth of it from the nature of cove- 
nants in general. He says : " Though it be but a 
man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disan- 
nuleth or addeth thereto." (Gal. iii. 15.) The illus- 
tration is as follows : None but the parties to a cove- 
nant can change or annul it when it has been con- 
firmed or ratified. Either of the parties may make 
covenants with other parties afterward, but they can 
insert no provision which would annul or weaken any 
item in the covenant already ratified. Now, in this 
Abrahamic covenant God was one of the parties and 
Abraham the other. They never came together as 
covenanting parties after this covenant was ratified. 
"Four hundred and thirty years" afterward God and 
Moses came together as covenanting parties at Sinai, 
but Abraham, one of the parties to the former cove- 
nant, was absent, hence no clause could be inserted 
in the Sinaitic covenant which would clash with that 
made with Abraham. Hence, says the Apostle : 
"And this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed 
before of God in Christ, [/. <?., the Abrahamic] the 
law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, 
can not disannul, that it should make the promise 
of none effect." (Gal. iii. 17.) The facts, then, con- 
cerning these covenants are simply as follows : The 
one made with Abraham was 191 1 years before Christ 
was born ; 430 years after that covenant was ratified, 



INFANT BAPTISM. 85 

i. <?., 1 48 1 years before Christ was born, God made a 
covenant with Moses at Sinai concerning the tempo- 
ral affairs of the Hebrews ; no transaction in this cov- 
enant could possibly set aside any provision in that 
made with Abraham without a flagrant disregard of the 
very nature of a covenant ; hence these two cove- 
nants ran along side by side for 1481 years, when the 
Sinaitic expired by limitation, and the Abrahamic 
swept out over all nations, and over all time, holding 
Jesus Christ as its central figure. Hence the great 
truth is established, that no transactions made with 
Moses or any one else, after this covenant with Abra- 
ham was ratified, could set aside any provision of that 
covenant. I beg leave to submit here a most remarka- 
ble concession upon this point, made by the most distin- 
guished opponent of infant baptism this country ever 
had. I mean Alexander Campbell. It is most man- 
ifest that in the following statement he was so hot in 
pursuit of a Jew that he forgot infant baptism, else 
he never would have written these lines. He is 
commenting upon Gal. iii. He says: 1. " In the 
covenant with Abraham, which was solemnly ratified, 
God had promised salvation to the Gentiles, before the 
nation of Israel existed, or the national covenant was 
instituted. From this fact Paul argues that the Gen- 
tiles should not hearken to the Judaisers; that they 
should not practice any of the Jewish peculiarities. 



86 INFANT • BAPTISM. 

The gospel which he now proclaimed to the Gentiles 
was substantially announced to Abraham when first 
called. 

" 2. But after expatiating upon this fact and con- 
firming it with other considerations, the Apostle founds 
his argument upon the nature of covenants in general 
among men, and from one promise made to Abra- 
ham. It is notorious that when a covenant between 
two parties is ratified, no person, except the parties 
themselves, can disannul it. Now, God, one of the 
parties in the covenant, made the promises to Abra- 
ham and the seed of Abraham. This seed was a 
unity; not all the descendants of Abraham, but one of 
them, namely, the Messiah. This covenant, then, was 
ratified with Abraham concerning the Messiah and un- 
alterably settled. 

" 3. Consequently, the law, or covenant with the 
whole nation of Israel, 430 years after this time, could 
not disannul the promise in another covenant, con- 
cerning persons not present, and, therefore, no party 
in that covenant. 

"4. Here the Jew is introduced with his objection. 
'To what purpose, then, was the law?' Paul shows 
that it was introduced for another purpose than to be- 
stow or secure the inheritance promised 430 before it 
was promulgated ; and, from the circumstances of its 
promulgation, completes his argument not yet brought 



INFANT BAPTISM. 87 

to a legitimate close. This law, or covenant, was, 
says he, introduced by angels, through the hands of a 
mediator, and could not affect the promises of the cov- 
enant with Abraham, for this plain reason, that the 
parties to that covenant, 430 years ratified, were not 
present. And the covenant at Sinai was ordained in 
the hands of a mediator, namely, Moses. There was 
no mediator between God and Abraham, which proves 
the superiority of that covenant to the Sinaitic. But 
the stress rests upon this fact, that this Moses, this 
mediator, was not one of the parties of that covenant 
concerning the seed. God, it is true, was one of 
them ; but the covenant could not be disannulled, 
'though it were but a man's,' unless both the parties 
were present. . . . But God was one of the par- 
ties, and might make with the fleshly seed of Abra- 
ham, by means of a mediator, any covenant he pleased, 
which would not countervail a?iy item in the former. 
But as he was one party, he could not insert one 
clause in the Sinaitic covenant which would clash with 
that already ratified; so could not by any promise, or 
after act, exclude the nations of the earth from partici- 
pating in the blessings of the promised seedy (Appen- 
dix to N. T. of 1828, p. 435.) Thus it is acknowl- 
edged that the covenant with Abraham is the univer- 
sal covenant of grace, that no subsequent legislation or 
covenant could annul one item contained in it; and 
hence, it can never be abrogated. 



&8 INFANT BAPTISM. 

I will simply add, that this covenant alone, of all the 
covenants made, was ratified or confirmed in Christ. 
(Gal. iii. 17.) 

We have, therefore, in this, the Magna Charta of the 
Church — the Constitution of God's kingdom. It can 
never be annulled while the promise of salvation 
through Christ is made to humanity; "no item" of it, 
says Mr. Campbell, can be annulled by any subse- 
quent covenant. 

Now, suppose that we appeal to this divine Consti- 
tution to ascertain the rights of infants in the Church 
of God. We turn to Genesis xvii. 1-14, where this 
covenant is recorded, and we find that infants at the 
tenderest age were to be brought to God and the 
token of the covenant given to them. When was this 
law of the covenant abrogated ? We answer, Never. 
Is that covenant in force to-day as truly as when made 
with Abraham ? We have seen that it is, and that 
even A. Campbell declared as much. If, then, that 
covenant is now in full force, and if this law of it with 
reference to infants has never been annulled, as we 
have seen it has not, and could not be, then does the 
unalterable Constitution of God's Church as impera- 
tively demand that infants be brought into his Church 
now, and the token thereof given to them, as it did in 
the days of Abraham. There is no escape from this. 
Our opponents feel the crushing force of it, and fly to 
ridiculous cavils. We will notice them in due time. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 89 

Here we plant our banner. Here is the Constitution 
of God's Church. Here is fundamental, primordial, 
law for infant baptism and Church membership. Let 
our opponents show when this was repealed, or how 
in the nature of the case it could be repealed ; and if 
they fail to do so, then let them cease their war upon 
God's appointment. 

The intelligent opponents of infant baptism never 
fail to exhibit the utmost alarm at this point, and they 
have accordingly tortured themselves in the effort to 
bring forward something to break the force of this ar- 
gument. We shall here examine their cavils — better 
than that we can not characterize them, (i.) It is 
objected by them that the appointment of circum- 
cision, and consequently infant church-membership 
(Gen. xvii.) was in the year of the world 2107; and 
that the covenant concerning the Messiah (Gen. xxii.) 
was in the year 2141; that, consequently, this " cove- 
nant of circumcision," as they express it, was separated 
from that covenant which was "confirmed in Christ" 
by about thirty-four years, and was, therefore, no part 
of it. This is a mere cavil, and one ol comparatively 
recent origin. It has no foundation in fact. The 
covenant with Abraham is a development. It was 
not made as a whole at any one time or place. It be- 
gan when God called Abraham from Ur of the Chal- 
dees (Gen. xi.), was resumed upon the separation of 



90 INFANT BAPTISM. 

Abraham and Lot (Gen. xiii.), was again taken up in 
Gen, xvii., and was then broken off until the events 
narrated in Gen. xvii, and was resumed and com- 
pleted at the offering of Isaac. (Gen. xxii.) It is 
the sheerest caviling imaginable to take these several 
stages in the development of this covenant, and out of 
them attempt to carve three or four covenants. A 
Rabbi in Campbellism, and perhaps one of the most 
scholarly men they have (President Milligan), virtually 
ignores this dodge of his brethren. He says : " In Gen. 
xvii. 2, 4, 7, the word covena?it has reference to both 
the families of Abraham, and it is simply equivalent to 
the twofold and somewhat amplified promise that God 
had made to Mm before he left Ur of Chaldee" 
(Scheme of Redemption, p. 76.) On page 79 he 
speaks of the Abrahamic covenant as a development 
from the call of Abraham in Ur. When their own 
positions are thus destroyed by their own friends we 
need not pause to argue against them. You have only 
to read one opponent of infant baptism against an- 
other when on this question. There has never been 
any union among them on this question, except in 
their unreasoning opposition. We confidently affirm, 
in view of the above facts, that the Abrahamic cove- 
nant, as recorded from Gen. xh\ to xxii., is one. 

Again (2.): It is objected that God had promised 
by Jeremiah (xxxi. 31-35) that he would "make anew 



INFANT BAPTISM. 9 1 

covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house 
of Judah," and that St. Paul reiterates the same 
promise (Heb. viii. 8), and then it is assumed that this 
is a covenant which is to take the place of that made 
with Abraham. Now, we have clearly seen that the 
covenant with Abraham could not be " disannulled " 
without a flagrant disregard of the nature of a cove- 
nant, and that Mr. Campbell so argues. Yet our op- 
ponents, in their desperation, seize upon such radically 
erroneous assumptions in the face of the teachings of 
their own bi other Campbell, not to mention the Apos- 
tle Paul. This is done because they think some popu- 
lar effect in their favor can be made out of the expres- 
sions, "new covenant," &c. We will meet them here. 
And (i) if it could be shown that God intended a 
" new covenant " by what is said Jer. xxxi. 31, and 
Heb. viii. 8, it has already been demonstrated that 
though a thousand " new covenants " might have been 
made after that with Abraham, still the very nature of 
covenants would forbid either the insertion of one 
item which would have clashed with any provision in 
that ratified with Abraham, or the annulling by the 
" new covenant " of any stipulation in the Abrahamic. 
For the parties not being present, the Abrahamic cov- 
enant was forever beyond the possibility. of change or 
amendment. We might admit, therefore, all our op- 
ponents say about " a new covenant," and it can not 



92 INFANT BAPTISM. 

affect our position. Until they show where God and 
Abraham came together and " annulled " infant 
church-membership or anything else in that covenant, 
it can not be made to appear that any subsequent cov- 
enant, with entirely different parties, effected this. To 
talk, therefore, of " new covenants " as they do is 
simply to delude themselves and those who follow 
their teachings. 

But (2) our opponents use the expressions, " old 
covenant " and " new covenant," as found in Jer. 
xxxi. and Heb. viii., in an utterly contradictory sense 
to that in which these inspired writers use them. Thus, 
our opponents mean by " old covenant " the Abra- 
hamic covenant ; and by " neiv covenant " they mean 
the covenant of salvation which was confirmed in 
Christ. Now, the simple truth is, that by " old cove- 
nant," which was " to vanish away," the Apostle 
means the Sinaitic covenant, as any one can see by 
reading the eighth and ninth chapters of Hebrews. 
There the "first covenant " and the "old" covenant 
are one and the same, and there designated that cove- 
nant which had a worldly sanctuary — " the taberna- 
cle," " the candlestick," " the table" and " shew bread," 
" the holy of holies," the " golden censer," and what- 
ever else pertained to the Levitical ritual given at 
Sinai. This is called by Paul "the old" covenant- 
The " new covenant," as used by Paul and Jeremiah, 



INFANT BAPTISM. 93 

is the Abraha?nic covenant, which was confirmed in 
Christ, and is called the " new covenant " because it 
was never to become antiquated like the Sinaitic. 
Now, when writing upon other topics, our opponents 
themselves have admitted all this, and thus destroyed 
with their own hands their arguments upon the " new 
covenant." 

I quote on this head from Mr. Campbell's Appen- 
dix to his translation of the New Testament, 1828, 
page 432. He says : " The term new is added to dis- 
tinguish "it from the old covenant, that is, the dispensa- 
tion of Moses. . . . The two covenants are always 
in Scripture the two dispensations or religious institu- 
tions ; that under Moses is the old.' 1 Also, Milligan's 
Scheme of Redemption, p. 75. " This [the Abrahamic, 
covenant] is the same which is also frequently called 
the new covenant, and which is fully developed in the 
New Testament." Thus out of their own mouth we 
condemn their position. Milligan and Campbell af- 
firm that the " new covenant" is the Abrahamic cove- 
nant, and consequently not a different covenant which 
"disannuls" it, and that the " old covenant" is the 
Sinaitic, made 430 years after that with Abraham. 
Nothing need be added. I will simply say, in con- 
cluding this matter, that the expression, " I will make 
a new covenant" in Heb. viii. 8, does not mean to 
make new, de novo, or to originate. It simply means 



94 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



to complete. The Greek word is avvreXeao) — sunteleso, 
which Campbell translates in that verse thus : " / will 
complete a new institution with the house of Israel" 
&c. It is also defined by the best lexicons. The 
meaning simply is, that the promise of a redeeming 
Messiah, made in the covenant with Abraham, should 
be completed, or fulfilled, by the coming of his Son 
Jesus Christ. Thus their cavils melt and disappear 
and we are left with the broad, eternal Constitution of 
God's Church — the covenant with Abraham — provid- 
ing for infant membership in the Church, winch ne- 
cessarily involves their baptism. 

We might safely leave the whole matter here, de- 
manding of our opponents to show when this law was 
abrogated — when this Constitution was so amended or 
changed as to exclude infants from the privileges of 
the Church. The onus probandi here turns upon th em 
But we shall proceed to show that the Church founded 
upon this divine Constitution never failed to recognize 
the eligibility of infants to the privileges of the Church. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 95 



ARTICLE VII. 

BAPTISM IN THE ROOM OF CIRCUMCISION ST. PETER 

DECLARES THE CONTINUED ELIGIBILITY OF CHIL- 
DREN — UNITY AND CONTINUANCE OF THE CHURCH. 

There are two points in connection with the argu- 
ment from the covenant of grace, developed in our 
last, which we will notice : 

(1.) Circumcision, which, under the former econ- 
omy, was the rite of initiation into the Church, and 
the token of die covenant, is, under the present 
economy, substituted by baptism. 

Let the facts already established be remembered, 
and it will be seen that the above statement is of itself 
conclusive in proof of infant baptism. We have al- 
ready shown that that covenant, which is universal, 
eternal, unalterable — the Constitution of the Church 
to-day — provides for the admission of infants at the 
tenderest age. According to it, the Church for cen- 
turies received infants as members. Now, suppose it 
can be established that baptism takes the place in this 
covenant which circumcision formerly occupied, with 
no change of subjects specified. Will not that demand 
infant baptism as infallibly as infant circumcision was 
demanded before this change in the rite ? We would 



g6 INFANT BAPTISM. 

observe here, that to substitute baptism for circumci- 
sion would be no violation of covenant rights. It is 
very evident that among other offices of circumcision 
in the Church, it had a typical reference to the prom- 
ised " Seed " — Christ, and, consequently, his coming 
was the limit of the continuance of that rite. Ac- 
cordingly, the Apostles desisted unanimously from the 
practice of it. (Acts xv.) In its relation to church 
membership it was simply " the token " of the cove- 
nant, and, consequently, it was legitimate at any time 
to displace it by the appointment of another " token," 
and still the great covenant law not be affected. 

It is not a little remarkable that the same change in 
the outward form of both sacraments in the Church 
did take place. For example, under the former econ- 
omy, the sacrament relating to atonement — namely, 
the Passover, had as its outward form the paschal lamb, 
unleavened bread, bitter herbs and wine (which latter 
was introduced at some unknown time.) Now, when 
this sacrament of atonement was adjusted to the pres- 
ent economy, the Saviour threw off the lamb and the 
bitter herbs, and took the remaining items — namely, 
bread and wine, and under these forms perpetuated 
the sacrament of atonement. This change in the out- 
ward form did not affect the great law of atonement. 

In like manner, the sacrament relating to Church 
membership — namely, circumcision, had as its outward 



INFANT BAPTISM. 97 

form a prescribed cutting in the flesh, and, as has been 
abundantly proven in a former number, baptism, 
though, like the " wine " in the Passover, the time of 
its introduction is not definitely known. When this 
sacrament relating to Church membership was ad- 
justed to the present economy, the Savior threw oft 
the cutting in the flesh, and took the remaining item — 
namely, baptism, and under this form perpetuated this 
sacrament, without affecting the covenant law. In the 
light of these truths, St. Paul's language (Gal. iii. 27- 
28), becomes luminous. As has already been shown? 
when a Gentile family was proselyted under the former 
economy, the males were circumcised and baptized, 
and the females were baptized. Alluding to that re- 
adjustment of this sacrament which now makes the 
form of it practicable for all, he says, " For as many of 
you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on 
Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is 
neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor 
female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Christ 
has so adjusted the elements of this sacrament under 
the present economy as to make it alike applicable 
to all. 

Now, nothing can be plainer than that St. Paul al- 
ludes to this change of baptism for circumcision in 
Col. ii. 10-12, "And ye are complete in him, which is 
the head of all principality and power; in whom also 
7 



98 INFANT BAPTISM. 

ye are circumcised with the circumcision made with- 
out hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the 
flesh by the circumcision of Christ; buried with him 
in baptism," &c. Here it is manifest that circum- 
cision and baptism are used interchangeably, and bap- 
tism is referred to as Christian circumcision. 

The early writers in the Church thought and wrote 
conformably to this opinion. Thus, Justin Martyr : 
" And we, who have approached God through Him, 
have received not carnal, but spiritual circumcision, 
which Enoch and those like him observed. And we 
have received it through baptism, since we were sin- 
ners, by God's mercy ; and all men may equally ob- 
tain it." (Dialogue with Trypho., chap, xliii.) Chry- 
sostom says: "There was pain and trouble in the 
practice of Jewish circumcision ; but our circumcision, 
I mean the grace of baptism, gives cure without pain; 
and this is for infants as well as men." We need not 
multiply quotations here. It is plain that the Church 
from the earliest times believed that baptism is in the 
room of circumcision. 

These facts established, and the friends of infant 
baptism need not travel an inch further in the argu- 
ment. Here is the Constitution of the Church provid- 
ing for infant Church membership. For 191 1 years 
the Church received infants, upon this Constitution, 
and gave them the initiatory rite and token — circum- 



INFANT BAPTISM. 

cision. That Constitution remains as the fundamental 
law of the Church to-day, and the circumcision which , 
according to its provisions, was given to infants dur- 
ing nineteen hundred years, is now substituted by bap- 
tism. The conclusion is irresistible. 

(2.) The second point to be noticed is the state- 
ment of the Apostle Peter with reference to the con- 
tinuation of these covenant privileges to children. On 
the memorable day of Pentecost, Peter was addres- 
sing a multitude of Jews (Acts ii. 5), who had been 
educated to receive infants into the Church and give 
to them the token of covenant relation. In the course 
of his address to them he said : " For the promise is 
unto you, and to your children, and to all that are 
afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall 
call." (V. 39.) Let us now examine this statement 
a little. The phrase, " to you and to your children," 
means adults and infants. This is indisputable. The 
word teknois — children — means, it is true, posterity, 
but it means infant as well as adult posterity, and is 
often restricted in its sense to infants. The phraseology 
here agrees exactly with that in Gen. xvii. 7, "to be a 
God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee." While 
" thy seed" was a phrase by which the whole posterity 
of Abraham was expressed, it also narrowed itself 
down so absolutely to infancy that it enjoined circum- 
cision upon the child eight days old. Let the same- 



IOO INFANT BAPTISM. 

ness of the phraseology be considered. When God 
makes the covenant with Abraham by which infants 
are brought into the Church, the promise that he 
makes is " to thee, and to thy seed." When Peter at 
Pentecost, the very time when it is assumed that this 
covenant and all things appertaining to it was forever 
abrogated, stood up to proclaim the kingdom of Christ 
to the Jews, he said, "the promise is unto you, and to 
your children." When God said, " to thee, and to 
thy seed," the Church understood that infants were in- 
cluded, and for nineteen centuries she received them. 
What else could it mean, then, to Jews, when Peter, 
in the exact language of the covenant, said, " to you, 
and to your children ?" Now, in both instances 
(Gen. xvii. 7, and Acts ii. 39) this phrase stands con- 
nected with an ordinance by which persons were to 
be admitted into the Church. When " to thee, and to 
thy seed," was said to Abraham (Gen. xvii. 7), it stood 
connected with circumcision; when "unto you, and to 
your children," was said by Peter, it stood connected 
with baptism. This language to Abraham, in con- 
nection with " the promise," brought infants into the 
Church for nineteen hundred years. The same lan- 
guage is now uttered in connection with " the prom- 
ise " by an inspired Apostle. How would a congre- 
gation of Hebrews, such as that he addressed, under- 
stand it ? There could be but one meaning, and that 



INFANT BAPTISM. IOI 

is, that infants are placed in the same relation to bap- 
tism under the present economy, that they sustained 
to circumcision under the former economy. In both 
instances (Gen. xvii 7, and Acts ii 29), parents and 
children are united in the same way. There it is, " to 
thee, and to thy seed ;" here it is, " to you, and to 
your children." The promise in both instances is 
connected with the initiatory rite into the Church — 
circumcision, baptism. In both instances the ordi- 
nance is made to result from the promise — the one is 
set down as a reason for the other (Gen. xvii. 9), 
" Thou shalt keep my covenant, therefore, thou and 
thy seed after thee ;" that is, because God had given a 
promise. So, in Acts ii. 38-39, " Repent and be bap- 
tized every one of you ... lor [because] the 
promise is unto you, and to your children." Children 
are, therefore, placed in the same relation to both 
these ordinances. From these facts I deduce the fol- 
lowing principle : When a positive institute is con- 
nected with a promise, all who are contained in the 
promise have a right to the institute. In Gen. xvii. a 
positive institute — circumcision — is connected with a 
promise, " to be a God to thee, and to thy seed." All 
mentioned in that promise were entitled to the insti- 
tute circumcision. The Church so understood it for 
nineteen hundred years. In Acts ii. 38-39 a positive 
institute — baptism — is connected with a "promise," 



102 INFANT BAPTISM. 

and children are named in that promise. Therefore, 
they have a right to baptism. Let our opponents 
disprove it if they can. Let it be remembered that 
both Peter and his audience had been educated in the 
belief of these truths, had themselves been brought 
into the Church in infancy, and no one can reasonably 
doubt that both the speaker and his hearers under- 
stood that infants were to continue in the same rela- 
tion to the Church and baptism that they had for- 
merly occupied to the Church and circumcision. 

These points being established, we shall now pro- 
ceed to demonstrate the fact, that the Church founded 
upon this covenant, and into which infants were ad- 
mitted by the rite of circumcision, continues to this 
day as " the commonwealth of Israel," " the body of 
Christ." The opponents of infant baptism know of 
but one method of escape from the logic of this fact ; 
and that is, by one remorseless blow, to sweep from 
the four thousand years preceding Christ's nativity 
every thing that has the semblance of a Church- 
Their entire theory goes upon the assumption that 
during four thousand years the infinitely wise God was 
experimenting upon the awful question of salvation. 
Immortal souls by the million were appearing upon 
the stage, and then gliding into eternity; hell was 
" enlarging " itself; heaven hung black with the storms 
of wrath, portending the doom of sin ; along the fun- 



INFANT BAPTISM. 1 03 

eral column of humanity, which, amid the blackness 
of darkness, was melting away and disappearing at the 
mouth of the grave continually, the anxious inquiries 
rolled from age to age, " If a man die, shall he live 
again ?" " What shall I do to be saved ?" And still 
He who sees the end from the beginning was experi- 
menting — setting up one economy and tearing down 
another — and never reached the right thing, until, on 
the day of Pentecost, four thousand years after hu- 
manity began its march to the grave ! In all those 
sad centuries our opponents can see no Church for 
fostering piety, no Christ for the remission of sin. 
Elder Wilkes says: "It is not reasonable that there 
could be remission of sins before the shedding of that 
blood on which alone remission of sins depends. The 
shedding of Christ's blood is for the remission of sins, 
and that blood takes its effect after its shedding, not 
before. ... I told you that there was no final 
remission of sins under the Jewish economy." 
(Wilkes-Ditzler Debate, pp. 59-60.) All this is ne- 
cessary to get rid of infant baptism; for whenever it is 
made to appear that God's Church did, according to 
the provisions of its unalterable Constitution, receive 
infants then, and gave to them the initiatory rite, and 
that that Church, resting upon the same Constitution, 
is the Church of God to-day, infant baptism follows as 
an inevitable consequence. Hence the anxiety, and 



104 INFANT BAPTISM. 

even desperation, of our opponents to get rid of these 
facts. We shall proceed to establish them. 

Our first work will be to show that the Church of 
God did then exist, as really and truly as it now ex- 
ists. Not that there was a "fleshly institution," in 
which "neither faith nor piety was contemplated." 
(A. Campbell, debate with Rice, p. 309); but that a 
Church, having every essential fact and feature that 
the Church of Christ now possesses, did then exist. 

Then (1), there was a Church centuries before "the 
day of Pentecost." Let us establish this fact, and 
then proceed to show its Christian character. Acts 
vii. 37-38 : " This is that Moses, which said unto the 
children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God 
raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him 
shall ye hear. This is he, that was in the Church in 
the wilderness, with the angel which spake to him in 
the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; who received 
the lively oracles to give unto us." Here, then, was 
the Church, in the days of Moses, who is said to have 
been a member of it. The fact that there was a 
Church then can not be doubted, for inspiration de- 
clares it. The word rendered Church here is efctchrjaia 
(ekklesia), which, though sometimes used for a pro- 
miscuous assembly (but when so used is indicated as 
having that sense by the accompanying circumstances), 
is the word almost always employed to signify God's 



INFANT BAPTISM. 105 

separated people. It occurs 1 1 5 times in the New 
Testament, and is translated "Church" 112 times out 
of 115. A few examples of its use will not be out of 
place. Matt. xvi. 18, "build my Church;" xviii. 17, 
" tell it to the Church." Acts xx. 28, " feed the 
Church of God." Rom. xvi. 16, "the Churches of 
Christ." 1st Cor. i. 2, "unto the Church of God." 
2d Cor. i. 1, "unto the Church of God." Gal. i. 13, 
" persecuted the Church of God." Eph. v. 25, 
" Christ also loved the Church." 2d Thess. i. 4, " in 
the Churches of God." Thus this word is used 
through the whole New Testament to designate God's 
separated people — the Church of Christ. Thus it is 
used in the text we have quoted, Acts vii. 37-38. 
What Stephen, in Acts vii., called the Church 
{ekklesia), Paul, speaking of the same time and cir- 
cumstances, calls a "house," Heb. iii. 5. "Whose 
[ i. <?., Christ's ] house," says he, " are we, if we hold 
fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm 
unto the end," Heb. iii. 6. This "Church," then, 
" in the wilderness," fifteen hundred years before " the 
Pentecost " of Acts ii., in which Moses was a member, 
Paul declares to be Christ's " house," which he thus 
explains : " Whose house are we " This " Church," 
therefore, was the "house" of Christ. 

Having thus established the fact that there was a 
" Church " then, by all rules which are relied on to 



106 INFANT BAPTISM. 

prove that there is a Church now, let us proceed to 
examine its character, and ascertain if it had the essen- 
tials of a Church of Christ. 

2. We affirm that Christ was with that Church, and 
known to its members. That he was with that Church 
is indubitable. That is made manifest by a text al- 
ready cited, viz : Heb. hi. 5, 6, "And Moses verily 
was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testi- 
mony ot those things which were to be spoken after ; 
but Christ as a Son over his own house ; whose house 
are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoic- 
ing of the hope firm unto the end." Let it be ob- 
served that St. Paul is, in this chapter, showing the 
superiority of Christ over Moses, and he makes the 
following points: (a.) Moses did not build the 
"house;" Christ did. (b.) Moses was only in the 
"house;" Christ was over it, as its ruler, (c.) Moses 
was a servant in this " house ;" Christ was the Son 
and heir. This " house," therefore, which was " the 
Church" (Acts vii. 37, 38), which Moses was "in," 
had Christ " over " it as the ruler ol " his own house." 

But the fact that Christ was with this Church is 
made manifest by various other Scriptures, some ot 
which we give : 

1st Cor. x. 4. Speaking of the "fathers" who 
" passed through the sea " in coming out of Egypt, 
Paul says, "And did all drink the same spiritual drink; 



« 
INFANT BAPTISM. 107 



for they drank of that Spiritual Rock that followed 
them ; and that Rock was Christ." Christ was with 
them, and they knew him, and had intimate commu- 
nion with him, expressed by " drinking of that Spirit- 
ual Rock." In verse 9, continuing the same subject, 
he says, " neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them 
also tempted." They " tempted Christ," as we do 
now when we murmur and disobey. 

Heb. xi. 26. It is said of Moses, " Esteeming the 
reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in 
Egypt." Moses, who was in that " Church " as a dis- 
tinguished "servant," knew "Christ," and his "re- 
proach," and chose him in preference to " the treasures 
in Egypt." The same fact presents itself in all subse- 
quent ages of " the Church." Christ was with it, and 
known to the members of it. Thus, St. Peter (1st 
Peter i. 10, n), " Of which salvation the prophets 
have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied 
of the grace that should come unto you ; searching 
what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ 
which was in them did signify, when it testified before- 
hand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should 
follow." 

Again, Acts x. 43. " To him [Jesus Christ] give all 
the prophets witness, that through his name whoso- 
ever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins." 
Not only was he with " the Church," and known to 



108 INFANT BAPTISM. 

the members thereof, but " remission of sins " was 
declared, by every inspired teacher whom God raised 
up, to be through " faith in his name." How little 
truth, therefore, is there in Mr. Campbell's assertion, 
that in that Church " neither faith nor piety was con- 
templated !" 

Here we have established the fact that there was a 
" Church," and have seen that Christ, as the head, 
was with that Church and known to the members 
thereof. But one item remains — namely : 

3. The Gospel was preached in that Church. To 
the proof of this we at once proceed: Heb. iii. 16- 
19, and iv. 1,2: " For some, when they had heard, 
did provoke; howbeit, not all that came out of Egypt 
by Moses. But with whom was he grieved forty 
years ? Was it not with them that had sinned, whose 
carcasses fell in the wilderness ? And to whom sware 
he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them 
that believed not? So we see they could not enter 
in because of unbelief. Let us therefore fear, lest a 
promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of 
you should seem to come short of it. For unto us 
was the Gospel preached, as well as unto them ; but 
the word preached did not profit them, not being 
mixed with faith in them that heard it." 

Here it is declared that " the Gospel was preached ' 
to those who were in this " Church in the wilderness,' 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



IO9 



and that some then, as ever since, failed of its ben- 
efits through " unbelief;" " howbeit not all that came 
out of Egypt by Moses." Many heard, believed, were 
saved by it, just as men here believe, and are saved 
by it now. The same Apostle declares that the Gos- 
pel was preached " to Abraham," Gal. iii. 8, which 
the Geneva version of 1557 thus renders: "For the 
Scripture sawe afore hande, that God wolde Justine 
the Gentiles through faith, and therefore preached 
beforehand the Gospel unto Abraham," &c. 

Let us now sum up these facts. We have seen (1) 
That there was a Church fifteen centuries before the 
time at which our opponents say it was " set up." (2) 
That Christ, " the head " and ruler, was with that 
Church, known to its members, who had communion 
with him, and dispensing " remission of sins through 
faith in his name." Acts x. 43. (3) That the Gospel 
was preached in that Church, was rejected by some 
" who heard it," and believed by others who were 
saved through it. Now, let me ask, what more have 
we to- day making up the Church of Christ ? The 
Church as "the body," Christ as "the head," and 
the Gospel as the rule oi faith and practice, each in 
their divinely appointed relation, the one to the other, 
is all that our opponents themselves claim as necessa- 
ry to constitute " the Church of Christ." This we 
had in " the wilderness," fifteen hundred years before 



IIO INFANT BAPTISM. 

he nativity, built upon the covenant with Abraham 
as its Constitution, and infants received into it at the 
tenderest age, and the initiatory rite thereof given to 
them ! Our opponents claim that this Church, which 
they are pleased to call " a fleshly institution," was 
abolished, and " the Church of Christ " set up after 
the crucifixion. But if the Scriptures which we adduce 
depose correctly, why abolish " the Church of Christ " 
to set up "the Church of Christ?" Could anything 
more be done toward making it " the Church of 
Christ," when Christ was already with it as its head — 
known, loved and adored by its members, and his 
Gospel preached in it ? Nothing could be more ab- 
surd than the position of our opponents here. 

We close this number with a brief glance at the 
points of unity which have always existed, and must 
continue to exist, in the Church of God. 

(i) "One body." ist Cor. xii. 12, 13, " For as 
the body is one, and hath many members, and all the 
members of that one body, being many, are one body ; 
so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all bap- 
tized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles." 
"The body," which is the Church (Col. i. 17, 18), "is 
one " through all time and all economies, and the 
pious Hebrews, or " Jews," were in this " one body." 

(2) One system of doctrine. We have only space 
to name these. We shall notice them more at length 



INFANT BAPTISM. Ill 

hereafter. In the time of which Stephen speaks, Acts 
vii. and Paul, Heb. iii. and iv., " the Church " had the 
same doctrines it now has, according to the Scriptures, 
such as "Atonement," " Repentance," " Faith," " Par- 
don," " Resurrection," " Judgment," " Heaven," 
" Hell," &c, &c. In the very first sermon that Christ 
preached after his resurrection it is said, "And begin- 
ning at Moses, and all the prophets, he expounded 
unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning 
himself." Luke xxiv. 27. 

Into this Church, we re-affirm, which had all the 
facts and essentials of the Church of Jesus Christ, in- 
fants were brought by the Constitution thereof. Let 
our opponents show when they were legislated out. 



112 INFANT BAPTISM. 



ARTICLE VIII 



UNITY OF THE CHURCH, AND OF INFANT MEMBER- 
SHIP IN IT (CONTINUED). 

It has been seen that in the time of Moses, and on 
afterward, there was a Church, possessing all the facts 
and elements which make up " the Church of God " 
to-day. Christ was with it. Its members knew him 
and had communion with him. Remission of sins was 
then, as now, through faith in his name. The Gospel 
was preached in it. And all the doctrines which the 
Church has now, it had then. That many of its mem- 
bers did, from time to time, become degenerate in 
life and doctrine is a sad fact ; but it is a fact which 
also characterized the Church in the Apostolic age, 
and has been a blot upon her escutcheon in every age 
since. But who ever dreamed of arguing that God 
had no Church in the Apostolic age because profliga- 
cy of life and heresy in doctrine characterized the 
Church at Corinth, and at Laodicea, and in Galatia, 
and, in fact, almost everywhere to a greater or less 
extent? When a portion of the Church becomes 
faithless, apostatizes, it will not do to assume that all 
are like them. This would disprove the existence of 



INFANT BAPTISM. 113 

the Church to-day as well as a thousand years before 
the nativity. In fact, inspiration attempts to save us 
from such delusive assumptions. St. Paul takes up 
one of the most degenerate periods in the history of 
the Church before the birth of Jesus, and shows that 
even then there were those who remained faithful and 
pure amid an almost overwhelming apostasy : " Wot 
ye not what the Scripture saith of Elias ? How he 
maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, 
Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down 
thine altars ; and I am left alone, and they seek my 
life. But what saith the answer of God unto him ? 
I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who 
have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. 
Even so then at this present time also there is a rem- 
nant according to the election of grace." (Rom. xi. 
2-5.) Here was one of the darkest periqds in the 
history of the Church. God's altars were " digged 
down," his prophets were "killed," the dismal rites of 
Baal were observed on every mountain and in every 
vale ; even Elias supposed the apostasy was universal 
and complete. But even then " seven thousand men " 
(by which expression an indefinite but large number 
is intended), remained faithful and true. . Paul surveys 
a similar scene in his own day. He saw defection 
and apostasy everywhere, yet did not conclude that, 
therefore, God's Church had fallen and the covenant 
8 



114 INFANT BAPTISM. 

failed; but, on the contrary, shows that then, as in 
the days of Elias, there was " a remnant " who re- 
mained true. There could, therefore, be no more fal- 
lacious process of argumentation than that of our op- 
ponents who assume that because the " rulers of the 
people " and multitudes of their creatures rejected 
Christ when he came, or were heretical and impure 
centuries before he came, therefore God had no 
Church then. " The rulers " and their minions did 
the same in the days of Elias, and still God had a true 
people left. Now, one of the great benefits of Mes- 
siah's coming was to be the cleansing and purifying of 
his Church from these evils. Thus saith the prophet : 
"And the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to 
his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom 
ye delight in ; behold, he shall come, saith the Lord 
of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming ? 
and who shall stand when he appeareth ? for he is 
like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. And he 
shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he shall 
purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and 
silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in 
righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and 
Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of 
old, and as in former times." (Malachi hi. 1-4.) 
This prophet, standing upon the utmost verge of the 
old prophetic period, and looking across a chasm of 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



"5 



four hundred years, during which time no prophet 
should arise, sees the Messiah at the great work of 
purifying his Church from heresy and degeneracy, 
thus anticipating the glorious work which John the 
Baptist saw inaugurated when he said : "His fan is 
in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, 
and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will 
burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." (Matt. iii. 
12.) The Church, therefore, was not to be disman- 
tled and a new experiment entered upon. But it was 
to be absterged and purified from erroneous doctrines 
and degenerate members. We ask the reader to turn 
to Matthew xxi. 33-46, and read it carefully in this 
connection. Under the parable of " the Vineyard " 
Christ fully sets forth the fact that his Church, which 
was often likened to a vineyard (see Isa. v.) was 
not to be torn down and a new institution erected be- 
cause of the apostasy of so many of its members, but 
it was " to be taken from " those who had proved un- 
true to it — the apostate portion of Israel — and " given 
to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." (V. 43.) 
The apostates who heard him did not misunderstand 
him on this point, for " when the Chief Priests and 
Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that 
he spake of them " (V. 45); "and when they heard 
it, they said, God forbid." (Luke xx. 16.) 

St. Paul argues the same thing under a different 



Il6 INFANT BAPTISM. 

figure. In Roman xi. he likens the Church to "a 
good olive tree," from which some of the " branches " 
or members were broken off through " unbelief," and 
the Gentiles were " graffed in." " And if some of the 
branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive 
tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them par- 
takest of the root and fatness of the olive tree ; boast 
not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou 
bearest not the root, but the root thee." It is mani- 
fest that by this " good olive tree " he means the 
Church. This will be made plain. Bloomfield, on 
verse 17, says: " Of the olive tree, i. <>., of the prom- 
ises to Abraham, and the privileges of God's Church." 
Moses Stuart, on verse 17, says: " The image which 
he here employs is a very vivid one. The Gentiles 
had been grafted in upon the Jewish Church, and had 
caused this decayed tree to revive and flourish.'' 
Tholuck, on the same verse, says : " By Christianity, 
he says, Judaism is not properly done away ; that 
was rather the veil by which Christianity was once 
concealed. So little, then, ought the Gentile to look 
down upon the Jew, as the follower of a false religion, 
that he must rather regard him as one belonging to 
the true religion, but who does not appreciate that as 
he ought, and so is in error regarding his own faith. 
On the contrary, the Gentile, instructed in Christiani- 
ty, becomes thereby a true Jew." It is needless to 



INFANT BAPTISM. Ii; 

multiply citations of this kind. The voice of learned 
criticism has not one discordant note at this point. 
All acknowledge that by " the good olive tree " the 
Church of God, as it existed among the Hebrews, is 
meant. This being established, observe the following 
points made by the Apostle : 

(1) The unbelieving Jews, as fruitless branches, are 
"broken off" (V. 17); "some of the branches be 
broken off" (V. 20); "because of unbelief they were 
broken off;" for rejecting the Messiah and corrupting 
the faith. But this did not destroy " the good olive 
tree." Its " root and fatness " remained, and the 
Gentiles were grafted in among the branches which 
remained. 

(2) That the Gentiles, when converted to Christi- 
anity, were " graffed into this good olive tree " — the 
Church — not formed into a new organization. Ad- 
dressing these Gentile converts, St. Paul says : " If 
some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a 
wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with 
them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive 
tree; boast not against the branches." (V. 17.) This 
can not be misunderstood. The Church of God had 
remained, based upon the " everlasting covenant " 
made with Abraham ; many Jews had been thrust out 
because of "unbelief" and unholiness of life; and 
those who were converted to Christ from among the 
Gentiles were brought into this Church. 



Il8 INFANT BAPTISM. 

(3) That when the Jews, now in unbelief, are re- 
claimed and brought to recognize the Messiah in Jesus 
of Nazareth, they will be restored to their original 
Church and covenant relation — not introduced into a 
new institution. So saith the Apostle, verse 23, "And 
they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be 
grafted in ; for God is able to graft them in again," V. 
24 ; " how much more shall these, which be the natu- 
ral branches, be grafted into their own olive tree ?" 
But let us suppose that the position of our opponents, 
with reference to the Church, be correct. Then, when 
..he Jews are converted (as the Scriptures assuredly 
indicate they will be), and brought into the Church of 
God, instead of being returned to " their own olive 
tree," or Church, they will find themselves in an or- 
ganization utterly at variance with the Church from 
which they had been cut off. Our opponents say that 
the Church set upon Pentecost had "new principles;" 
that it rests upon a " new covenant " — a different Con- 
stitution — that it is radically different in its " terms of 
membership," its " doctrines," and its " members." 
How would this be a restoration of the converted 
Israelite to his own olive tree. The absurdity of the 
position is most manifest. Here, then, as in many 
other places, the Apostle, in harmony with the Saviour's 
teachings on the subject, declares the unity and con- 
tinuance of the Church through all dispensations. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 119 

These facts being established, let Us now return to 
the point from which we digressed. One of the great 
benefits of Messiah's coming, we have said, was 
to be the cleansing and purifying of this Church. 
Accordingly, before that ever memorable day of Pen- 
tecost, the Church, purged from the accumulated 
abuses of ages, and separated from the faithless multi- 
tude who had crowded her courts, appears all glori- 
ous. Acts i. 15, 16. "And in those days Peter 
stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said (the 
number of the names together were about an hundred 
and twenty), men and brethren, this Scripture must 
needs have been fulfilled," &c. 

Here was the Church of God, called by one of its 
most common appellations — " disciples." Now, with 
reference to this Church, we observe the following 
facts : 

(1) It performed, at this point inks history, one of 
the most solemn duties the Church was ever called 
upon to discharge — namely, to elect an Apostle. 
(Verses 16 and 26.) Surely if it had not been the 
Church of God it would not have presumed to do 
such a thing. 

(2) To this Church the "three thousand" were 
" added " on the day of Pentecost, and the millions 
who were afterward converted to Christ. So we read, 
Acts ii. 41, " Then they that gladly received his word 



120 INFANT BAPTISM. 

were baptized; and the same day there were added 
unto them about three thousand souls." To whom, 
or to what, were these three thousand added ? Most 
manifestly to that Church, which, as we have seen, a 
few days before, had elected an Apostle, whose num- 
ber is stated to have been " an hundred and twenty," 
and which bore the common name of the Church — 
disciples. In the 47th verse these are called the Church 
— "And the Lord added to the Church daily such as 
should be saved." Instead, therefore, of finding a 
new organization set up on the day of Pentecost, we 
find the converts made on that day "added" to a 
previously existing and regularly constituted "Church." 

(3) The " one hundred and twenty " who composed 
this Church never received Christian baptism on or 
after the day of Pentecost. They had been brought 
into the Church by circumcision in infancy, and had 
not gone off in the apostasy. They were, in part at 
least, " the remnant according to the election of 
grace," to which St. Paul refers in Romans xi. 5. 
This was the " good olive tree " from which the fruit- 
less branches had been broken off, and into which the 
vast multitudes converted from among the Gentiles 
" were graffed." 

Let not our opponents cavil at the smallness of the 
number of this Church as it appears in Acts i. 15-16. 
The eye of prophecy had looked down through many 



INFANT BAPTISM. 121 

centuries upon this little company, and the tongue of 
prophets had been divinely moved to utter " exceed- 
ing great and precious promises " to them. We will 
read some of those promises, and thereby still further 
see that it never was the intention of Jehovah to de- 
stroy the Church founded upon his covenant with 
Abraham, but, on the contrary, to bring the Gentiles 
to it. " But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, 
and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman for- 
get her sucking child, that she should not have com- 
passion on the son of her womb ? Yea, they may 
forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have 
graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls 
are continually before me. Thy children shall make 
haste ; thy destroyers and they that make thee waste 
shall go forth of thee." When the Church was so 
fearfully diminished by the apostasy, she is represented 
as exclaiming, " The Lord hath forsaken me, and my 
Lord hath forgotton me " — the very thing which our 
opponents say was done. But God says to his weep- 
ing Church, '• Behold, I have graven thee upon the 
palms of my hands," and assures her that even though 
a mother should forget her child, " yet I will not for- 
get thee." But how could he promise this if he inten- 
ded to lay her utterly waste, and throw her aside as a 
" fleshly " thing which " contemplated neither faith 
nor piety ! " But he proceeds to show her the en- 



122 INFANT BAPTISM. 

largement and glory which he would bring to her in 
the days of her desolation. " Lift up thine eyes round 
about, and behold; all these gather themselves 
together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the 
Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as 
with an ornament, and bind them on thee as a bride 
doeth." Here the promise is that the Gentiles shall 
come to Zion — the Church — and the desolation made 
by the apostasy of so many Jews shall be repaired by 
the ingathering of the nations. But the promise pro- 
ceeds : " The children which thou shalt have, after 
thou hast lost the other [ after the apostasy ], shall say 
again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me ; give 
place to me that I may dwell. Then shalt thou say 
in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I 
have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and 
removing to and fro ? and who hath brought up these ? 
Behold I was left alone ; these, where had they been ? 
Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up mine 
hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the 
people ; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, 
and thy daughters shall be carried upon their should- 
ers. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their 
queens thy nursing mothers ; they shall bow down to 
thee with their faces toward the earth, and lick up the 
dust of thy feet ; and thou shalt know that I am the 
Lord ; for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me." 



INFANT BAPTISM. 1 23 

(Isa. xlix.) Here was the assurance — not that the 
Church should be dismantled and obliterated because 
" the Chief Priests, and Scribes, and rulers of the 
people" rejected the Messiah and apostatized from 
the faith, but that the Church should arise from the 
pressure of these calamities and the woe of these deso- 
lations, and " clothe " herself with the nations of the 
earth. The history of the past eighteen hundred 
years has verified these promises. But the promise 
continues : " Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear ; 
break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that 
didst not travail with child ; for more are the children 
of the desolate than the children of the married wife, 
saith the Lord. Enlarge the place ot thy tent, and 
let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations; 
spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy 
stakes ; for thou shalt break forth on the right hand 
and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gen- 
tiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. 
. . . . In a little wrath I hid my face from thee 
for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I 
have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer." 
(Isa. liv. 1, 3, 8.) 

It is needless to copy more of these assurances of 
continuance and increase of the Church. They glitter 
like the stars of morning upon almost every page of 
prophecy. Instead, therefore, of abolishing his 



124 INFANT BAPTISM. 

Church, and setting up on the day of Pentecost " a 
new institution," with " new principles and new terms 
of membership," every promise that God had given 
the Church was to the effect that she should survive 
the apostasy, and pass on to " inherit the Gentiles," 
with her Constitution unchanged and her organization 
unbroken. Accordingly, we see the Church before 
the day of Pentecost (Acts i. 15-16) in the discharge 
of her high functions, and on that memorable day 
3,000 were " added " to it, and 5,000 a few days after, 
and then she sweeps out over all tribal metes and 
bounds and gathers into her embrace the millions that 
are " beyond." Triumphing over the desolations of 
all ages, and passing unbroken over prostrate empires 
and crumbled thrones, she has come grandly down from 
the remotest antiquity. She was venerable with years 
when the pyramids of Egypt were begun ; she was all 
glorious as the City of God when the foundations of 
Babylon were laid ; the martial tread of her hosts was 
felt upon this earth before Sesostris shook the plains of 
Asia, or Xerxes stormed the defenses of Greece. As 
we stand in her venerable presence to-day, we may 
properly address to her the splendid lines of the poet : 

" But thou of temples old, or altars new, 

Standest alone — with nothing like to thee — 
Worthiest of God, the holy and the true ! 
Since Zion's desolation, when that He 



INFANT BAPTISM. I 25 

Forsook his former City, what could be 
Of earthly structures in his honor pil'd 

Of a sublimer aspect ? Majesty, 

Power, glory, strength, and beauty, all are aisl'd 
In this eternal ark of worship undenl'd." 

If we look back now along the line of development 
we have pursued we shall see that the following facts 
have been established : 

(1) The covenant made with Abraham, which in 
the very nature of the case is unalterable, and which 
" was confirmed in Christ," does, as the eternal Con- 
stitution of the Church, provide that infants shall be 
rectived into membership by the Church and the ini- 
tiatory rite thereof given them. This is the Constitu- 
tion of the Church to-day. 

(2) That the initiatory rite, which under a former 
economy was circumcision, and was given to infants, 
has, under the present economy, been changed to bap- 
tism, with no change specified as to the subjects there- 
of. Hence the constitutional provisions with reference 
to children not being changed, their rights remain the 
same. 

And (3) that the Church, founded upon this Con- 
stitution, and illustrating its meaning by her adminis- 
tration in receiving infants to membership for nearly 
two thousand years before the birth of Christ, con- 
tinues to this day the same Church — the same in her 



126 INFANT BAPTISM. 

" Head, which is Christ," the same in her Constitution, 
in her doctrines, terms of membership, &c. From 
these facts, sustained at every point by the explicit 
declarations of God's word, the conclusion comes as 
inevitably as the effect flows from its cause — infant 
baptism is authorized by the word of God. 

The Scriptures by which our opponents attempt to 
disprove the unity of the Church in all ages, will be 
next considered. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 1 27 



ARTICLE IX. 

THE TEXTS SUPPOSED TO MILITATE AGAINST THE 
UNITY OF THE CHURCH, CONSIDERED (jER. XXXI. 
31-34; HEB. VIII. 8-12; AMOS IX. II ; ACTS XV. 
14, ETC.) 

It has been supposed by our opponents that the 
above texts disprove the position that the Church and 
its Constitution have remained one and the same 
through all dispensations. Now, if there were a con- 
flict between the above texts, on this question, and 
the numerous plain and unequivocal declarations of 
Scripture which we have produced to establish the 
unity of the Church, all the rules of Biblical interpre- 
tation would demand that these texts relied on by our 
opponents be interpreted in harmony with those we 
have adduced. Our position is sustained by plain 
declarations which appear all through the Bible ; by 
processes of reasoning by inspired prophets and Apos- 
tles; by parables and illustrations by the Savior, until 
a demonstration is made which no separate and iso- 
lated text can displace without establishing a prece- 
dent which would lay the very heart of Christianity 
bare to the thrusts of infidelity. 



128 INFANT BAPTISM. 

But no such conflict exists here. These passages, 
relied on by our opponents, when calmly considered, 
fall into line and support our claim. Let us, there- 
fore, take them up, one by one, and examine them. 

Jer. xxxi. 31-34. This is quoted by St. Paul, Heb. 
viii. 8-12. Let the reader turn to them and read 
them carefully. In both these places the promise of 
" a new covenant " is given, and that the law of God 
should be " put in their inward parts, and written in 
their hearts." 

From this our opponents attempt to show, that by 
" a new covenant " is meant one different from that 
made with Abraham — a new Constitution for a new 
Church. " He tells us not only that it will be a new 
covenant, but that it will be unlike the old covenant " 
(Wilkes in the W. D. Debate, p. 49) ; that the terms 
of membership under this new covenant are radically 
different from those of the old. Under the new, God's 
law is to be put in the inward part, and his law written 
in the heart. This, say our opponents, can not be 
done to infants, and that, consequently, they are no 
longer eligible to covenant relation. It ought to be a 
sufficient answer to all this to say that it contradicts all 
St. Paul says concerning the covenant with Abraham. 
Gal. hi. 15. It is there shown, as also in other places, 
that the covenant with Abraham could not be dis- 
placed by any subsequent arrangement, and that no 



INFANT BAPTISM. I 29 

item of any new covenant could clash with the items 
of that without a palpable violation of all covenant 
rights. Once a covenant is ratified by the parties, it 
becomes unalterable in all subsequent time, except by 
the parties to it. God might make a covenant with 
any of the people of Israel at any time, and he might 
multiply these " new covenants " a thousandfold, but 
no one of them could contravene that made with 
Abraham and "confirmed in Christ." 

Again : It is plain from the quotation above from 
Mr. Wilkes, and also from the statements of others in 
sympathy with him, that there is a continual con- 
founding of the terms old and new with reference to 
these covenants. We have already shown, what is 
admitted by Mr. Campbell and President Milligan, 
that in these places the " old covenant " is that made 
with Moses at Sinai, and that the " new covenant " is 
the Abrahamic. But Mr. Wilkes and others make 
the "old" mean the Abrahamic covenant, and the 
" new " something which they imagine was inaugu- 
rated after the crucifixion. This is a miserable per- 
version, and lies at the foundation of all their fallacies 
on this point. Neither Jeremiah nor Paul contem- 
plated such a thing in making " a new covenant " as 
that which our opponents assume. They assume that 
those inspired men meant to originate a covenant, to 
create that which had no previous existence. But a 
9 



130 INFANT BAPTISM. 

moment's examination must convince the unprejudiced 
that they contemplated no such thing. 

The Hebrew word used by Jeremiah, and translated 
"new" in our version, is hhdash, which Furst defines 
" to renew, to set up anew," and he refers, as exam- 
ples of its use in this sense, to 1st Sam. xi. 14, "Then 
said Samuel to his people, Come, and let us go to 
Gilgal, and renew the kingdom there ;" and 2d Chron. 
xv. 8, "And Asa . . . renewed the altar of the 
Lord that was before the porch of the Lord ;" xxiv. 4, 
"And it came to pass after this, that Joash was mind- 
ed to repair the house of the Lord;" Isa. lxi. 4, "And 
they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of 
many generations." 

Julius Bates (Critica Hebraea, of 1767,) also defines 
it " to renew," and cites the examples above given, 
with the addition of Ps. ciii. 5, " Thy youth is renew- 
ed." The word which Jeremiah employs does not, 
therefore, mean to originate in this passage. When 
the seventy rendered this word in Greek, they trans- 
lated it by diadrjaofiaL (diathesomai), which is never 
defined by the lexicons in the sense of to originate, 
but " to dispose, arrange, settle mutually." (Liddell 
and Scott.) Or, as Robinson defines, " to appoint, to 
assign, to covenant " When St. Paul quotes this pas- 
sage from Jeremiah (Heb. viii. 8), he uses, not the 
word which the Seventy used, but ovvreXeoG) {sunte- 



INFANT BAPTISM. 131 

Uso) y which Robinson defines thus, " to finish wholly, 
to complete, to fulfill," and refers to many examples 
of its use in the Scriptures in this sense. Now, a re- 
mark will be sufficient to show the bearing of all this. 
Under the accumulated rites and ceremonies of the 
Levitical ritual the spirituality of religion, and of the 
Church founded upon the covenant with Abraham, 
had been greatly lost sight of. God, therefore, points 
to the time, in this language of Jeremiah, when these 
rites and ceremonies of that ritual — the Sinaitic cove- 
nant — should be removed, and when the pure spiritu- 
ality of the Church and of religion, as contemplated 
in the Abrahamic covenant, should be restored. Hence 
it is called a renewal, a restoration, a completion, of 
that begun with Abraham. It is not a little remarka- 
ble that all our old English translations render St. 
Paul's language in Heb. viii. 8 in perfect accordance 
with this statement. I will here give them in paral- 
lel columns : 

Wiclif— 1380— Heb. viii. 8, 
"For he repremynge them: 
Seith, lo daies comer seith the 
lord ; and I schal make perfect 
a newe testament on the hous 
of israel and on the hous of 
juda." 

Cranmer 1539 Heb. viii, 8, 
" For in rebukinge them, he 
sayth unto them, Behold the 
days come (sayth the Lord) 
and I will fynisshe upon the 



Tyndale— 1534 — Heb. viii. 
8, "For in rebukynge them he 
sayth, Behold the days will 
come (sayth the lorde) and I 
will fynnyshe [finish] upon the 
housse of Israhel and upon the 
housse of Juda a newe testa- 
ment." 

Rheims — 1582— Heb. viii. 8, 
"For blaming them he saith: 
Behold the dai :s shal come, 
saith our Lord; and I will con- 



132 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



house of Israel, and upon the 
house of Juda, a new testa- 
ment." 



summate upon the house of 
Israel, and upon the house of 
Juda a new Testament." 



These venerable translators, following the real 
meaning of the words of Jeremiah and Paul, in every 
instance render them according to the definitions and 
use of them which we have shown. In fact, the idea 
of renewal or restoration pervades the entire 31st 
chapter of Jeremiah. Thus, verse 28th, "And it shall 
come to pass, that like as I have watched over them 
[t. e., the house of Judah and of Israel, verse 27] to 
pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, 
and to destroy, and to afflict ; so will I watch over them, 
to build, and to plant, saith the Lord." 

Instead, therefore, of a new covenant and a new 
Church, in which conditions of membership should 
exist impossible for an infant to comply with, the lan- 
guage is a promise of a perfect renewal of that cove- 
nant which provides for infants, and of that Church 
which had always received them. God's law was in 
the mind and written in the hearts of the faithful 
members of the Church centuries before the crucifixion, 
as really as at any time since. Thus the pious Psalm- 
ist exclaims, " Thy word have I hid in mine heart, 

that I might not sin against thee O how 

I love thy law ; it is my meditation all the day . . 
. . for thy testimonies are my meditation. . . 



INFANT BAPTISM. 133 

How sweet are thy words unto my taste ! yea, sweeter 
than h©ney to my mouth Thy testimo- 
nies have I taken as an heritage forever ; for they 
are the rejoicing of my heart." (Ps. 119.) Has any 
one, under the present economy, a happier experience 
in the law of God than this ? David did not regard 
it impossible for adults to have the law of God written 
in their hearts in a Church which received infants. 
Why should we ? The reasonings of our opponents 
upon the texts under consideration is a tissue of soph- 
istry from beginning to end. 

As the idea ot a " new Church," and a new order 
of things in it, is the point around which the oppo- 
nents of infant baptism make their hottest and most 
determined fight, it may not be improper to elaborate 
a little, further the Biblical idea of restoration or reno- 
vation with reference to the Church. The idea every- 
where presented in the Bible on this subject is that 
God would, at the coming of the Messiah, relieve the 
Church of the numerous and oppressive rites which 
the Sinaitic covenant placed upon it, and restore to it 
the simple spiritual worship which it had before. We 
will take one prominent presentation of this idea as 
an illustration of the truth of this position : 

The prophet Amos (ix. 11), referring to that much 
desired period, said: " In that day will I raise up the 
tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the 



134 INFANT BAPTISM. 

breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I 
will build it as in the days of old." A little consider- 
ation will disclose the fact, that by " the tabernacle of 
David," and the building of it " as in the days of old," 
is meant that renovation of the Church and restora- 
tion of a pure, comparatively non-ritual, worship which 
we have seen foretold by Jeremiah. To this end let 
us examine the several particulars of this prophecy in 
their proper order : 

(i) The word "tabernacle" used by Amos means 
the Church, not the lineage or family of David, as 
some suppose. Whitby, perhaps, is more responsible 
than any other commentator for this error. As a dis- 
tinguished critic (Dr. Smith) says: " Seeing the word 
1 tabernacle ' in the English version, he (Whitby) has- 
tily concluded that the usual word for ' tabernacle ' in 
the original — namely, mishkan, was the word employ- 
ed by Amos, without troubling himself to examine 
the Hebrew text of the prophet, to verify his conjec- 
ture. He has, consequently, misled his readers." 
(Harmony, p. 106.) Mr. Wilkes, ignorant of the He- 
brew, submitted himself to the unsafe guidance of 
Whitby in this particular, and fell into the same egre- 
gious error. He said : " The tabernacle of David 
means the family of David, the lineage of David." 
(W. D. Debate, p. 61.) The word here rendered 
* ' tabernacle" is sukkath, which never is used to signify 



INFANT BAPTISM. 1 35 

a " house" in the sense of a "family." Furst defines 
this word, "A booth, hut, a tent," &c. Amos passed 
by the word (miskkari) which ordinarily means " fam- 
ily," and took this word sukkath to express, first, the 
house which David built for the worship of God, and, 
secondly, the spiritual, non-ritual worship which was 
offered there. The prophecy, therefore, declares the 
restoration of this Church. 

(2) Let us now examine the history of the " taber- 
nacle of David." The facts concerning it are briefly 
as follows : When the Hebrews crossed the Jordan, 
the tabernacle built in the wilderness was set up at 
Gilgal, and after the death of Joshua it was removed 
to Shiloh in the tribe of Ephraim. Here the Leviti- 
cal ritual was observed in all the departments of wor- 
ship. In the days of Eli's high-priesthood the He- 
brews took the Ark of the Covenant from this taber- 
nacle and carried it before them to a great battle with 
the Philistines, in which they were slaughtered and 
the Ark captured. It remained in Philistia seven 
months, and was then returned to the Israelites, but 
was never restored to the tabernacle at Shiloh — the 
Mosaic tabernacle. On its return from Philistia it 
was placed in the house of Abinadab, whose son Elea- 
zar was " sanctified to keep the Ark of the Lord," and 
there it remained for eighty years. In the meantime 
the Mosaic tabernacle was removed from Shiloh to 



136 INFANT BAPTISM. 

Gibeon in the tribe of Benjamin. When, therefore, 
David came to the throne, the Ark was at the house 
of Abinadab in the tribe of Judah, and the tabernacle 
of Moses at Gibeon in the tribe of Benjamin. When 
David had subdued his enemies on every hand, his 
pious heart turned toward the Ark of the Lord which 
he determined to remove. He accordingly built a 
new tabernacle — sukkath — near his own house on 
Mount Zion for its reception. When he attempted to 
remove it thither the folly of Uzzah provoked the 
anger of God, who " smote him for his error, and there 
he died by the Ark of God." This caused a delay in 
its removal, and it was left in the house of Obed-Edom 
for three months. At the end of that time David re- 
moved it, and amid great rejoicing placed it in the tab- 
ernacle which he had built on Mount Zion. There it 
remained about thirty years, until the third year of 
the reign of Solomon, who removed it to the temple 
which he built. Now, the use which we make of 
these facts is this : During all this time that the Ark 
of the Covenant was in the tabernacle on Mount Zion, 
the numerous services, sacrifices, etc., prescribed by 
the Levitical ritual were duly performed in the Mosaic 
tabernacle at Gibeon in the tribe of Benjamin, while 
David and the pious Hebrews of his day offered a 
simple spiritual worship to God in the tabernacle on 
Mount Zion. In the midst of that tabernacle the Ark 



INFANT BAPTISM. 1 37 

was placed. (21 Sam. vi. 17.) It was not veiled or 
concealed from the view of the people, as it had been 
in the tabernacle of Moses, and afterward was in the 
Holy of Holies in the temple. But, with its golden 
cherubim, and the glorious shekinah of God, it was 
placed in the sight of the worshipers who had imme- 
diate and free access to it. There a gloriously spiritual 
worship was offered. "And he appointed certain of 
the Levites to minister before the Ark of the Lord, 
and to record, and to thank, and praise the Lord God 
ot Israel." (1st Chron. xvi. 4.) Mark this worship. 
It had ministers in the fullest sense of that term ; and 
"to record," i. e., to preach and teach; " to thank 
and praise the Lord God of Israel," i. e., to celebrate 
the divine goodness in song. For this " service of 
song" David provided a large choir of singers, and 
the splendid Psalms of David, so rich in the experi- 
ence of divine grace, so grand in their melody, and so 
subduing in their tenderness, composed the hymnology 
employed. Here was a pure spiritual worship, free 
from " bleeding bird and bleeding beast," — " from 
hyssop branch and sprinkling priest." The attendants 
here were not simply the royal family, but " the great 
congregation " so often referred to. Holiness of life 
was essential to communion in that worship. Con- 
cerning the character that would be accepted there, 
David says : " Who shall ascend into the hill of the 



I38 INFANT BAPTISM. 

Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place ? He that hath 
clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his 
soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully." Ps. xxiv. 

There is no evidence that this tabernacle and its 
spiritual worship were abandoned when Solomon re- 
moved the Ark to the temple. On the contrary, it is 
altogether probable that it still remained as a place of 
devotion to the deeply pious, and that it was imitated 
in other parts of the land. Here probably originated 
the idea of the synagogue which afterward went into 
such extensive use. 

But the sad day came in the history of Israel when 
wickedness and degeneracy fell upon the people. 
They forsook the worship of God, until, like in the 
days of Elias, only a remnant remained true, and these, 
perchance, met in secret and " waited for the promise." 
Amid this degeneracy, the senseless devotion to ordi- 
nances, God raised up Amos to prophesy. Standing 
in the place where so many prophecies had been de- 
livered — near the gate of the temple on Mount Mo- 
riah — this holy man first arraigned, exposed and con- 
demned the sins of the people in forsaking the only 
acceptable worship of God. This done, he turned 
his eyes to Mount Zion, which was separated from 
Mount Moriah by a narrow valley, and there beheld 
the ruins of the tabernacle of David. Its history was 
well known to Israel. Pointing with one hand to the 



INFANT BAPTISM. 139 

place where a pure spiritual worship had been offered 
to God in other days, and with the other hand point- 
ing down the stream of time to the coming Messiah, 
and the glorious restoration to be effected by him, he 
exclaimed : " In that day will I raise up the taberna- 
cle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches 
thereof ; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build 
it as in the days of old." 

(3) Let us now consider the application of this 
prophecy to the Church, showing that the inspired 
Apostles understood it to mean the restoration of the 
Church to a simple and pure spiritual worship. If 
this can be shown, it forever destroys the claims of our 
opponents for the setting up, de novo, of a new Church. 
This we proceed to do. The Messiah had come and 
completed his great mission ; he had ascended up on 
high and sent the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles ; the 
Gospel had been preached, and thousands, both Jews 
and Gentiles, had been gathered into the Church, 
when a serious trouble arose concerning the ceremo- 
nial duties of the Levitical ritual. Certain mistaken 
teachers had gone to the Gentile convert and said : 
" Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, 
ye can not be saved." (Acts xv. 1-5.) A question 
of vital importance thus arose, and " the Apostles and 
elders came together," in the first Christian Council, 
" to consider this matter." Paul and Barnabas went 



14-0 INFANT BAPTISM. 

from Antioch to Jerusalem to take part in the deliber- 
ations upon this important question, and, together 
with Peter, declared the wonderful results of the Gos- 
pel among the Gentiles. Let us assume ourselves 
present before that venerable body of inspired men, 
and propound to them the three questions concerning 
the Church which have agitated the world for ages. 
The first is the question of the Jew — the representa- 
tive of the Ritualist — namely, " Do not the Levitical 
ceremonies, rites and ordinances perpetuate themselves 
in the Church and continue obligatory in all time ?" 
The second is the question of the opponent of infant 
baptism — namely, " Has not a new Church, with new 
principles, a new Constitution, &c, been set up since 
the resurrection ?" The third is the question which 
the advocates of infant baptism and of Church unity 
maintain — namely, " Has not the Church, founded 
upon the Abrahamic covenant, and offering a pure 
spiritual worship to God, continued through all ages 
and dispensations ?" 

Now, let us seek the answer to these questions at 
the mouth of that inspired Council. The Apostle 
James gives it : " Men and brethren, hearken unto 
me. Simeon hath declared how God at the first did 
visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his 
name. And to this agree the words of the prophets 
[ Amos ix. ii ], as it is written : after this I will re- 



TNFANT BAPTISM. 14* 

turn, and will build again the tabernacle of David 
which is fallen down ; and I will build again the ruins 
thereof, and I will set it up ; that the residue of men 
might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon 
whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth 
all things well." Acts xv. 13-17. This shows the 
Jew, in answer to his question, that the Mosaic ritual 
formed no essential part of the Church of God at any 
time. The Church existed before that was given ; it 
existed as a pure, spiritual, non-ritual Church on 
Mount Zion while that ritual, with all that appertained 
to it, was observed at Gibeon ; and that the utter ces- 
sation of that ritual could not affect it in any wise for 
evil. Neither the coming in of these ordinances nor 
their departure affected the Church. The period of 
1400 years, during which that ritual was of obligation, 
was but a brief parenthesis in the Church. The 
Church on Mount Zion — the tabernacle of David — 
holding on in its spiritual, non-ritual worship in the 
midst of an infinite ritualism, was a sublime expose of 
the character and Constitution of the Church of God 
in all ages. Thus fell forever sacrifice, a human 
priesthood, and an imposing ceremonial; and the 
Church resumes her simple forms of preaching, song, 
and praise, which characterized her in the tabernacle 
of David. The answer to the opponent of infant bap- 
tism, as to whether " a new Church, with new princi- 



142 INFANT BAPTISM. 

pies and a new Constitution, was to be set up," is 
equally explicit. Instead of originating a new Church 
and a new worship, this inspired Council informs him 
that the Church, as it existed on Mount Zion, was to 
be simply restored and its ruins built up as in the days 
of old ; and this is to be done " that the residue of 
men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, 
upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord." Into 
its ample folds the Gentiles, as seen in other prophe- 
cies quoted, are to be gathered. This answers the 
third question affirmatively, while it disproves both the 
former. 

Thus it is shown that the Church of God continues 
one and the same through all economies. Rites may 
change, ordinances may be suspended, introduced, or 
cancelled ; subordinate covenants may come in and be 
obligatory for centuries and then expire by limitation ; 
but the Church, planted upon the immutable cove- 
nant with Abraham, which was confirmed in Christ, 
abides unchanged forever. The unalterable Constitu- 
tion of this Church makes infants eligible to her mem- 
bership and the initiatory rite thereof. Where do our 
opponents show the abrogation of this law ? Nowhere ! 



INFANT BAPTISM. 143 



ARTICLE X 



THE TEXTS SUPPOSED TO MILITATE AGAINST THE 
UNITY OF THE CHURCH CONSIDERED (CONTINUED). 
DAN. II. 44; MAT. XVI. 18. 

We shall close this investigation with the present 
number, in which we shall briefly examine the remain- 
ing texts relied on by the opponents of Church unity. 

Daniel ii. 44. — " And in the days of these kings 
shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall 
never be destroyed ; and the kingdom shall not be left 
to other people, but it shall break in pieces and con- 
sume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." 

Here, it is assumed by our opponents, that the set- 
ting up a kingdom by the God of heaven means the 
tounding or originating the Church of God after the 
crucifixion. The whole position is false, and the pro- 
cess of argumentation by which it is attempted to sus- 
tain it is at war with the teachings of Scripture and 
history. This assertion will be made plain by a brief 
examination of the passage, which we now propose. 

Nebuchadnezzar dreamed that a great image stood 
before him, which is thus described : The head was 
of fine gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly 
and thighs of brass, the legs of iron, the feet and toes 



144 INFANT BAPTISM. 

part of potters' clay and part iron. (Dan. ii. 31-41.) 
Here was a grand chronological image of monarchy, 
and is thus explained by all. The " head " is the 
Babylonian kingdom ; the " breast and arms " is the 
Medo-Persian ; the " belly and thighs " is the Mace- 
donian under Alexander the Great; and the " legs and 
feet " is the Roman kingdom. Now, as a fact of his- 
tory, which destroys the assumption of our opponents 
on this text, we observe : 

(1) That these were all secular kingdoms, and each 
one in its turn was destroyed by a secular kingdom — 
not by the Church of God. Hence, whatever " the 
kingdom" which the God of heaven was to " set up in 
the days of these kings " may mean, one thing is cer- 
tain, it can not mean the Church. For, in the first 
place, a work is assigned to this "kingdom" of the 
God of heaven which is utterly at variance with the 
oft proclaimed character of the Church. It is here 
declared that this " kiftgdom " " shall break in pieces 
and consume all these kingdoms " — a work which is ut- 
terly at war with what Christ said of his kingdom — 
namely : " My kingdom is not of this world ; if my 
kingdom were of this world, then would my servants 
fight." (John xviii. 36.) It would not be compatible 
with the character of such a kingdom to " break in 
pieces and consume " the governments of this world 
To attempt it would forfeit the character of the 



INFANT JJAPTISM. 145 

Church. But, in the second place, it is an undeniable 
fact of history that each of the kingdoms symbolized 
in this image was overthrown and destroyed by secu- 
lar kingdoms. Thus, the Babylonian kingdom, the 
head of the image, was destroyed by Cyrus about 560 
years before Christ ; the Medo-Persian kingdom, the 
" breast and arms " of the image, was destroyed by 
Alexander at the battle of Arbela, B. C. 331; the 
Macedonian kingdom, " the belly and thighs" of the 
image, was overthrown by the death of Alexander and 
the divisions and wars which ensued between his gen- 
erals ; and the Roman kingdom, the " legs and feet " 
of the image, was destroyed by the Northern hordes, 
who finished their work of ruin under the walls of 
Constantinople on the 29th May, 1453, at which time 
the last vestige of that empire was swept away. In 
point of fact, the " Church," which our opponents be- 
lieve to be meant by the "kingdom" in this prophecy, 
never had any part in the overthrow of any of these 
kingdoms. This is sufficient to refute their claim, that 
the setting up of the Church is meant in this prophecy. 
(2) The time for the setting up of this " kingdom " 
is too late to answer the purpose of the theory we op- 
pose. It is generally conceded by the interpreters of 
this prophecy, that " the feet and toes, part of potters' 
clay and part of iron," (vr. 41) in this chronological 
image, symbolizes the politico-ecclesiastical papal 
10 



146 INFANT BAPTISM. 

power. There are many things to justify this conclu- 
sion. As (a) there is perfect chronological order ob- 
served in this image — the " head," " breast," " thighs," 
" legs," and " feet," symbolizing successive periods 
from 560 B. C. to 1053 A. D., the "feet and toes," 
therefore, symbolize the last period in the Roman em- 
pire. And (b) the weakness in this empire, indicated 
by the " clay and iron " mixed rogether, was not rea- 
lized until after the union of Church and State, conse- 
quent upon the conversion of Constantine in 313 A. 
D. Interpreters generally agree that the " clay and 
iron " period in the image symbolized the union of 
Church and State in the Roman empire. But this 
did not take place, as above seen, until in the fourth 
century. Hence this image of monarchy was not 
prepared for destruction until this period in its devel- 
opment was reached. 

Lastly, (c) The " stone " was not " cut out of the 
mountain," nor was " the kingdom set up," until the 
chronological image was completed. This is manifest 
from the statement in verse 34. Daniel said to the 
King : " Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out 
without hands, which smote the image upon his feet 
that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces." 
Mark the expression — " thou sawest till that," i. e., 
" thou continuedst to look along down the stream of 
time until, the image being completed, thou sawest a 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



147 



stone cut out without hands." Now, the kingdom 
was not set up until the image was completed and the 
" stone cut out." But this brings us to the fourth cen- 
tury of the Christian era, and consequently too late 
for the purposes of the theory we oppose. 

(3) The word employed by Daniel, rendered " set 
up," does not signify to originate. Our opponents 
assume it does. Let us now to the proof. This part 
of Daniel's prophecy is written in the Chaldee lan- 
guage, and the word used by him is f kim, which 
Furst defines " to raise out of misfortune ; commonly 
to confirm, to establish ; to rebuild ; to make, revive, 
to awaken to life ; to reanimate ; to give a firm posi- 
tion to ; to restore, to erect again ; to be established ; 
to endure, to remain," &c. When Daniel's book was 
translated into Greek, the word avao-Tjoet {anastesei) 
was employed to translate the Chaldee word. Lid- 
dell and Scott thus define it : " To make to stand up, 
wake up, restore, rouse to action, to build up again." 
Here, as we have seen in other instances, a restora- 
tion simply is contemplated, not a creation. If it re* 
fers to the Church at all, it contemplates simply a 
reformation from abuses. Whether it does so refer or 
not, the period at which the event seen by Nebuchad- 
nezzar is centuries too late for the cause of our oppo- 
nents. This " kingdom " was " set up " in the days of 
the weakness of the Roman empire when its " iron " 



148 INFANT BAPTISM. 

power had been weakened by ecclesiastical union and 
broils. But at the time of the crucifixion, the period 
when our opponents assume the Church was origi- 
nated, the Roman empire was at the zenith of its 
strength and glory. The splendor of the Augustan 
age then rested upon her invincible arms and trium- 
phant laws. This text, therefore, gives them no sup- 
port whatever. 

There is one other — namely, Matt. xvi. 18: "And 

I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon 
this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell 
shall not prevail against it." After what has been 
shown concerning similar passages we need not dwell 
on this. The theory which we oppose assumes that 
by the words " I will build my Church," Christ meant 
to say he would originate a church, or would bring 
into existence that which had no previous existence. 
There never was an assumption more utterly ground- 
less. Out of such assumption concerning these words 
many of the grossest errors and most blasphemous 
pretensions of the Church of Rome have arisen. Our 
opponents have not fallen far behind Rome in the 
abuse of this text. An examination ol it will show 
that it furnishes them no support. The word rendered 

II build " in this verse is outodofifjocj (oikodomeso), and 
is defined by the lexicons thus : Liddell and Scott, 
" to edify," N. T. Groves, " to edify, instruct, im- 



INFANT BAPTISM. I 49 

prove, profit, to embolden, encourage." Robinson 
" to rebuild, to renew, to build up, to establish, to con 
firm, spoken of the Christian Church and its members, 
who are thus compared to a building, a temple of God 
erected upon the one only foundation Jesus Christ, 
and ever built up progressively and unceasingly more 
and more from the foundation." This is the prevail- 
ing sense in which the word is used. We give a few 
examples. Jer. xxx. 18 : "And the city shall be 
builded {pikodomeo) upon her own heap." Here was 
restoration, not origin. Matt. xxvi. 61 : "lam able 
to destroy the temple of God, and to build it {pikodomeo) 
in three days." Acts ix. 31 : " Then had the Churches 

rest and were edified" — (oikodomeo). 

The word used by the Savior, it is thus seen, means 
to rebuild, restore, establish. If we now consider the 
circumstances under which this language was used, 
this meaning ol the word must be apparent. There 
had been a great apostasy on the part of the rulers 
and many of the people. Degeneracy and corrup- 
tion lifted their heads every where. In the midst of 
this terrible state of affairs the Messiah appeared in 
the person of Jesus of Nazareth. But the apostates 
rejected him and sought his life. Every where he met 
with a powerful, organized resistance. Looked at 
from a merely human stand-point, his fortunes seemed 
hopeless. " Many of his disciples went back, and 



150 INFANT BAPTISM. 

walked no more with him," (John vi. 66.) But in 
this day of gloom Peter stood up and said, " Thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus re- 
plied, " Upon this rock [i. e., upon the truth here con- 
fessed] I will build [restore, reanimate, establish] my 
Church." Hopeless as seemed the enterprise, when 
considered from a human stand-point, yet the truth 
that Jesus of Nazareth is " the Christ, the Son of the 
living God," shall be the rallying point of the Church, 
and from it she shall derive strength which " the gates 
of hell " can not resist. This is the import of this 
text. It contains no intimation of a new organization. 
It simply announces the restoration to power and 
glory of the already existing Church of God, effected 
by the great truth which Peter had confessed. 

Thus we have examined the only texts upon which 
our opponents rely to disprove the unity and same- 
ness of the Church, and have seen that, instead of re- 
futing this position, they all declare a restoration, a 
renewal, of the Church of God to power and glory at 
the coming of the Messiah. No " new Church " was 
erected. This is but a waking dream of those who 
despise the Bible truth of infant baptism. It thus ap- 
pears that the Church founded upon the covenant 
with Abraham, and which for nineteen hundred years, 
in administering the law of that covenant, received in- 
fants to membership and gave them the token thereof, 



INFANT BAPTISM. 151 

is the Church of God to-day, with no change in her 
great constitutional law or in her subjects. This be- 
ing true, infant baptism follows inevitably as the law 
of God's Church now. 

We shall close this investigation by showing that a 
contrary supposition, i. e., that infant baptism and in- 
fant church-membership is not the law of God's 
Church, is a modern invention, the child of fanaticism, 
born of the wildest heresy of modern times and nursed 
upon the bosom of hate toward everything pure and 
good in the Church of God. Where does the first or- 
ganized resistance to infant baptism appear in the his- 
tory of the past ? We answer, in Germany, among 
the fanatical Anabaptists, about the beginning of the 
sixteenth century. We fix this as the first organized 
resistance to infant baptism. For while it is true that 
some spasmodic instances of resistance to this apostolic 
custom of the Church do appear a little before this, it 
is also true that those instances fell without an echo. 
The Petrobrussians had opposed it in A. D. 1150, but 
not upon the ground which the present opponents of 
it assign lor their opposition. They (the Petrobrus- 
sians) opposed it upon the ground that infants, bap- 
tized or unbaptized, are not fit for the kingdom of 
God. Wall says of them : " The first body of men 
we read of that did deny baptism to infants, which 
were the Petrobrussians, Anno Domini 1150, did it 



I5 2 INFANT BAPTISM. 

upon a ground or reason which they held common 
with these men, viz.: that infants, baptized or unbap- 
tized, are incapable of the kingdom of heaven." (I. 
3i8.) 

Concerning the author ot this sect, Peter de Bruys, 
Mosheim thus speaks : " The whole system of doc- 
trines which this unhappy martyr, whose zeal was not 
without a considerable mixture of fanaticism, taught 
to the Petrobrussians, his disciples, is not known." 
(Ch. Hist. Pt. n, p. 289.) Like those who followed 
him in his opposition to infant baptism, he was a fan- 
atic, as faithful history deposes. Among other evi- 
dences of this the following is conclusive : " He main- 
tained that it is superstitious to build churches, and 
that those erected ought to be demolished." (Wat- 
son's Bib. Die.) With Peter de Bruys this opposition 
was a part of an extensive fanaticism. But his oppo- 
sition fell without an echo, and the silence on this 
question of opposition which had rested upon the 
Church from the Apostolic age was resumed and 
reigned supreme for three hundred and fifty years 
longer. This brings us to the origin of this opposi- 
tion which, under one form and another, has contin- 
ued to the present time. The great Reformation 
under Luther began about the opening of the six- 
teenth century. Grand and glorious as was that work, 
yet it was the occasion (innocent) of many excesses 



INFANT BAPTISM. 153 

in doctrine and practice. Once the human mind is 
loosened from the moorings of centuries, it is to be 
expected that ignorant and fanatical men will plunge 
into the wildest extremes. So it was in this Reforma- 
tion. While Luther and his co-laborers held grandly 
on in their work of redeeming the Church from papal 
abuses, many ignorant men plunged into excesses 
which threatened to thwart the labors of the great 
Reformer. Prominent among these were Louis Het- 
zer, Balthazar Hubmeyer, Felix Mentz, Conrad Gre- 
bel, Melchior Hoffman, and George Jacob. These 
men were the fathers of the Anabaptist sect, in which 
the present opposition to infant baptism originated. 
There is but one voice in history concerning that sect, 
and that is, they were a lawless, licentious, turbulent 
body ot fanatics, whose lives were filled up with the 
most revolting enormities and flagitious villainies. 
Mosheim says of them : "It is difficult to determine, 
with certainty, the particular spot that gave birth to 
that seditious and pestilential sect of Anabaptists, 
whose tumultuous and desperate attempts were equally 
pernicious to the cause of religion and the civil inter- 
ests of mankind. . . . The most pernicious fac- 
tion of all those that composed this motley multitude 
was the sect which pretended that the founders of the 
new and perfect Church, already mentioned, were 
under the direction of a divine impulse, and were 



154 INFANT BAPTISM. 

armed against all opposition by the power of working 
miracles. It was this detestable faction that, in 1521, 
began their fanatical work, under the guidance of 
Munzer, Stubner, Stork, and other leaders of the same 
furious complexion in Saxony and adjacent countries. 
They employed at first the various arts of persuasion, 
in order to propagate their doctrine. They preached, 
exhorted, admonished, and reasoned, in a manner that 
seemed proper to gain the multitude, and related a 
great number of visions and revelations, with which 
they pretended to have been favored from above. 
But when they saw that these methods of making 
proselytes were not attended with such rapid success 
as they fondly expected, and that the ministry of Lu- 
ther and other eminent reformers proved detrimental 
to their cause, they had recourse to more expeditious 
measures, and madly attempted to propagate their 
fanatical doctrine by force of arms. Munzer and his 
associates assembled in 1525 a numerous army, chiefly 
composed of the peasants of Suabia, Thuringia, Fran- 
conia, and Saxony, and, at the head of this credulous 
and deluded rabble, declared war against all laws, 
governments, and magistrates of every kind, under 
the chimerical pretext that Christ was now to take the 
reins of civil and ecclesiastical government into his 
own hands, and to rule alone over the nations. . . 
Those who distinguished themselves by the enormity 



INFANT BAPTISM. I55 

of their conduct in this infamous sect, were Louis 
Hetzer, Balthazar Hubmeyer, Feliz Mentz, Conrad 
Grebel, Melchior Hoffman, and George Jacob, who, 
if their power had seconded their designs, would have 
involved all Switzerland, Holland, and Germany in 
tumult and bloodshed. A great part of this rabble 
seemed really delirious; and nothing more extrava- 
gant and incredible can be imagined than the dreams 
and visions that were constantly arising in their dis- 
ordered brains." (Mosh. Church Hist. Pt. II. p. 492, 
493.) This was the origin of the Baptist Church and 
of organized opposition to infant baptism. The pages 
of history show no instance before this of a body that 
opposed it, except the spasmodic and ephemeral op- 
position of the Petrobrussians in the twelfth century. 
The facts, therefore, furnished by the history of the 
past with reference to infant baptism, are, that during 
the first twelve hundred years of the Christian era no 
body styling itself a Church ever lifted a voice against 
it. A few followers of a fanatic in Provence and Lan- 
guedoc, Peter de Bruys, did, about the opening of the 
twelfth century, oppose it, as they opposed many 
other things most sacred and essential to the Church. 
But this body sunk into oblivion with its ill-fated 
leader, and for three hundred and fifty years there- 
after no one echoed the opposition of this sect. Then, 
in the first half of the sixteenth century, arose the ec- 



156 INFANT BAPTISM. 

clesiastico-political sect of Anabaptists, from whom 
the present Baptist Church has descended, whose tur- 
bulence and crimes ultimately brought the arm of civil 
authority upon them, to save the country from blood- 
shed and ruin, and by them the present opposition to 
infant baptism was originated ! Let our opponents 
disprove this if they can. 

We have now passed over the field of investigation 
which we marked out in the beginning. The argu- 
ment is before the reader. It might have been elabo- 
rated more, but we doubt whether this would have 
added to the clear and comprehensive view which we 
wished the reader to have. Let him now weigh the 
facts presented from Scripture and history, and then 
ask himself on which side of the question is the truth. 
After some little experience in the investigation of the 
customs and practices of the Church of God, we hesi- 
tate not to say, that there are many matters of doc- 
trine and practice held to be true and sacred by all 
denominations which, if assailed, could not array in 
their behalf as much testimony as we have here ad- 
duced for infant baptism, to save the world. 

In conclusion, let me address one word to those 
whose Church furnishes the privilege of dedicating 
their children to God as the Bible has authorized. 
In many places the failure of the pulpit to instruct the 
congregation upon this duty, and in other places the 



INFANT BAPTISM. 1 57 

storm of relentless persecution against this duty, has 
caused it to be greatly and shamefully neglected. Let 
me exhort those who have this privilege allowed them 
to bring their " little children " to Christ " and forbid 
them not." Lay them confidingly in the arms of 
Jesus ; carefully place them in the fold of the great 
Shepherd. Let bigots rave and fanatics hiss. Thus 
they raved and hissed at the man who, on his way to 
the block and the ax, said, " I am ready to be offered 
up." Thus they have raved and hissed at the men 
and women in all the past who preferred the ax, the 
stake, and the gibbet to a compromise with infidelity. 
As well might these holy men and women have quailed 
before the storm and abandoned duty, as for you, be- 
cause of opposition. Do your duty. And as you 
hope to press these dear little ones back to your heart, 
warm with eternal life, when the night of the grave 
yields to the morning of heaven, so now consecrate 
them to God in holy baptism, and then train them up 
"in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Sept. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



